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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 4, 1987)
S3 T exas A&M isms* Battalion Vol.82 No.91 USPS 045360 12 pages College Station, Texas Wednesday, February 4 Iran confirms U.S. journalist arrested as spy Where’s The Beach? Denise Scanlin, a senior education major from Houston, gets ready early for Spring Break 1987 by sunning herself at a tanning salon. Photo by Doug La Rue These beds use the same rays as the sun, but the FDA has limited tan ning on this type of bed to 30 minutes to lessen risk of skin cancer. NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Iran confirmed Tuesday that it arrested American reporter Gerald F. Seib as a “spy of the Zionist regime” who en tered the country in the guise of a journalist. Seib, a 30-year-old correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, went to Iran with 56 other foreign corre spondents by invitation from the fundamentalist Shiite Moslem re gime. He was arrested Saturday and not allowed to leave with the other journalists. The Tehran radio broadcast was Iran’s first official confirmation that Seib was under arrest. It also said the United States had asked for his re lease, but did not say when or how the request was made and gave no details. Iran invited Seib and the other journalists to visit the border battle- front between Iran and Iraq, which have been at war since September 1980. Its official Islamic Republic News Agency reported during the week end that a “spy of the Zionist re gime” (Israel) nad been arrested af ter entering the country with a false E assport disguised as a journalist, ut it did not identify him. State Department spokesman Charles Redman said Monday that the Swiss Embassy, which handles U.S. interests in Iran, protested smaii hi! polict ut here ft her r, in her a Senator: Liability crisis in Texas initiated by insurance industry neai a. By Frank Smith Senior Staff Writer I: State Sen. Kent Caperton on IWBffMonday refuted the arguments of tort reform proponents in the insur ance industry, saying Texas’ liability insurance crisis was brought about . i by “an unresponsive, irresponsible QI; insurance industry” rather than the civil justice system. IgCaperton, D-Bryan, made his comments during an afternoon news conference in his local law office. He , also submitted the text of the mi- [ nority report of the House-Senate Joint Committee on Liability Insur- i ance and Fort Law and Procedure, a report to the Legislature that he co authored with Rep. James Hury, D- Galveston. E' As a member of the joint commit tee, Caperton listened to the testi mony of 86 witnesses over the course of|the committee’s year-long hear- gf’Not a single witness, including J many representing the insurance in- J dustry and others involved in the so- called tort reform effort, claimed or swould even admit that proposals to alter our civil justice system would lower the cost of liability insurance or increase its availability or cover- age in Texas,” he said. “In fact, the taliraflt major complaint of many of those witnesses was the profit picture of the insurance industry and the fact ^ thai their profits were not as large as some of the Fortune 500 compa nies.” I Applications for degrees ViG'due by Friday Caperton said the insurance in dustry reaped $11.5 billion in profits in 1986 — a 500 percent increase over the $1.9 billion reported in 1985. “Despite such earnings, the insur ance industry continues to claim that our civil justice system needs re form,” he said. “They claim that ex cessive jury verdicts have caused them to have to drastically increase premiums. Yet, they are unwilling to provide data to support such claims.” Caperton shared speaking time at the news conference with Billy Rog ers, executive director of Texans for Civil Justice — a two-month-old grass-roots organization battling against tort reform. Rogers joined Caperton in con demning the joint committee’s ma jority report, a 248-page, 500,000- word document that contains 30 tort reform proposals. “Not one sentence in that report mentions the core question of the whole controversy: Will any one of their 30 recommendations for tort law change lower your insurance ra tes?” Rogers said. “You won’t find that sentence in there because the answer is ‘No.’ Tort reform is a plan by the big insurance companies and some of their allies to take away your right to a fair jury trial and raise your rates at the same time.” Rogers said similar legislation adopted by Florida last year had those results. “Now tort reformers are here in Texas and they’re lying to us again,” he said. “They’re telling us that law suits are the cause of the problem. Lawsuits are not the cause of the problem in Texas. Texas ranks 44th out of 50 states in lawsuits per capita. “There is no lawsuit crisis in Texas and we don’t need tort re form.What we do need is insurance reform.” Caperton concurred. To illustrate that need, he recalled that he had asked an insurance representative to justify drastic rate increases for day care centers. “I said, ‘Surely these rates are going up . . . because your statistics show that it’s more hazardous in tak ing a child . . . from the day care cen ter to the library or to the plays or whatever they do,’ ” Caperton said. “He said, ‘No, it’s really just the un known.’ “I’m not going to take that kind of answer. I mean, that’s just nonsense. The insurance industry is literally getting away with murder. And we need to put a stop to it.” Caperton also expressed opposi tion to several specific tort reform proposals, including measures that would limit contingency fees for law yers, place caps on the amount of damages a person can receive in per sonal injury cases and place ceilings on the amount of punitive damages that can be levied against a de fendant. See Senator, page 12 Republicans join in overriding veto on clean-water bill WASHINGTON (AP) — The House, with scores of Republicans ignoring a final plea by President Reagan, voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to override the president’s veto of $20 billion water-quality leg islation. The 401-26 roll-call vote sent the issue to the Senate, which was ex pected on Wednesday to follow the House’s lead and hand Reagan a de feat in the first big spending con frontation of the 100th Congress. Several hours before Tuesday’s vote, Reagan sent a message to Capi tol Hill through Republican leaders that he wanted GOP members to support his position that the legis lation is too expensive in times of huge budget deficits. Except for the 26 Republicans voting to sustain the veto, the plea — which was not accompanied by any heavy White House lobbying — fell on deaf ears. Joining the 254 Demo crats voting to override were 147 Re publicans. House GOP Leader Robert Michel of Illinois urged party unity, saying that although he had origi nally voted for the popular legis lation, the veto last Friday “changes the complexion of the situation.” Michel said that with Congress and the White House $6 billion apart on spending, the cleanliness of America’s waterways was not the is sue — “wise and prudent use of tax dollars, that’s the issue.” But Michel’s plea was quickly un dercut by calls for a veto override by Reps. John Paul Hammerschmidt, R-Ark., and Arlan Stangeland, R- Minn., two of the key GOP members in the process of drafting the autho rization bill. “I believe President Reagan has listened to the wrong advice,” Stangeland said. “This body needs to send a strong message to the presi dent and the American people that this Congress won’t tolerate delays in the cleaning up of American wa ters.” The dispute between Capitol Hill and the White House centers on $18 billion authorized by the bill to pro vide assistance to the states through 1994 to construct wastewater and sewage treatment plants. Seib’s detention to Tranian authori ties and demanded his release. “His continued detention is un warranted,” Redman said. He said Tuesday that the Swiss had been unable to obtain an ap pointment with Iranian officials to discuss the arrest. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the Swiss had been denied access to Seib, so “we don’t have anyone who has talked to him or seen him.” Seib had sought assistance from the Swiss Embassy after immigration authorities impounded his passport last Thursday while he was prepar ing to leave the country. He is based in Cairo. Warren H. Phillips, chairman of the Wall Street Journal, said Mon day: “We believe that a dreadful mis take has been made in the detention, and we fervently hope that the gov ernment of Iran realizes it has made a mistake and will set him free.” Commission gives GSU new rate hike AUSTIN (AP) — The Public Util ity Commission on Tuesday gave troubled Gulf States Utilities a tongue-lashing and less than half the $82 million rate increase the com pany says it needs to avoid bank ruptcy next month. PUC Chairman Peggy Rosson said the panel was given “the onerous burden of having to say once again to Texas ratepayers, ‘You must step forth and save this company from it self.’ ” Rosson favored an increase of $ 17 million to $25 million, but the two other commissioners voted for a $39.9 million increase. GSU President Linn Draper said the approved increase would help but will not guarantee financial sal vation. “It’s clear that we’re not out of the woods,” Draper said. “We’ve got a long way to go. The fact that we have- gotten some supportive treatment in Texas is certainly helpful. We now need help in Louisiana and we need support from the financial commu nity.” The interim increase will raise the price of 1,000 kilowatt-hours for GSU residential customers in Texas from $68 per month to about $74. GSU’s request would have raised it to $77. The Beaumont-based company, which serves about 250,000 custom ers in Southeast Texas and approxi mately an equal number in Loui siana, is awaiting a court ruling on its challenge of Louisiana regulators decision against an emergency rate increase. p® n-h e Degree Audit Office has an nounced that all graduating seniors and graduate students who expect to complete degree requirements by Mav, 1987, must make formal appli- ^ m,*' cation for their degrees no later than ** Friday. i f Late applicants will be unable to receive a diploma. Undergraduate and graduate de- 3 a ppli can t s who did not have their diploma fee assessed with their tuition fee must pay a $15 diploma fee in the Fiscal Office, 4 Coke Building. A Undergraduate students must ^ then take their paid fee slips or di- ploma fee receipts to the Registrar’s ^ Office, 105 Heaton Hall. Graduate students must take their paid fee slips or diploma fee receipts to the Graduate College, 125 Teague Building. I All graduating seniors must com- flevi*' plete the necessary degree applica- ^ tion forms that are available in the Registrar’s Office, 105 Heaton Hall. ^ Graduate students can pick up - forms in 125 Teague Building. Anglo culture causes conflict of values ‘American Indians must face 2 worlds’ )2 By Cray Pixley Reporter Young American Indians face many conflicts in today’s society because they are living in two very different worlds — the In dian and the Anglo-American world. The conflict arises because the American Indian is living in two distinctly different cultures in which the values of each clash, said Charmaine Bradley, an Acoma Pueblo Indian and a doc toral student at Texas A&M. “Indians are not taught to be independent,” Bradley said. “We’re taught to help each other, but in the Anglo society, you go out and get it on your own. The value is independence.” Indian children are being taught in a setting that may con tradict the values of the culture, values which are being taught at home, she said. “They begin to wonder, ‘Am I doing this for myself or for my people?’ ” she said. “They need to have a sound foundation of who they are as American Indians and what they can contribute to both the Indian and Anglo worlds,” Bradley said. Bradley, who is from the Acoma Pueblo, west of Albuquer que, N.M., stressed that being confronted with two different cultures can be confusing to American Indians. This problem is made difficult when the Anglo world doesn’t ac knowledge or accept Indian va lues, she said. One of the most important cul tural values is harmony with na ture, Bradley said. “Many of our religious ceremonies and social activities are centered around that single value.” People who come to visit the reservation, but who aren’t very knowledgeable about the Indian world, think the ceremonies are just for fun, she said. They don’t realize the prayer and preparation that go into cere- “Indians are not taught to be independent. We're taught to help each other, but in the Anglo society, you go out and get it on your own. The value is in dependence. ” — Charmaine Bradley, Acoma Pueblo Indian monies such as the rain dance, she said, nor do they understand the meaning behind the ceremo nies. Another problem for Indians is they have to integrate with peo ple of different values. This prob lem is growing because of their dependence on the money of An glo America, she said. Many Indians must leave the reservation or seek outside funds in order to survive, she said. “Money is a whole different va lue system, which is again contra dictory to the Indian values,” Bradley said. American Indians do not, how ever, have to live on reservations to maintain their values in the Anglo world, she said. “To be Indian comes from the heart,” she said. There are many urban Indians who may never have been on a reservation, but know they are Indian; they know they are different, she said. “It is a sad conflict which will continue between white men and Indians unless the Anglo be comes familiar with Native Amer ican values,” she said. Bradley says she would like to help her 8-year-old daughter learn the beauty of her culture and the history of her people. Many people still have miscon ceptions about American Indians, she said. “They expect to see braids and feathers.” Marriage between Anglos and Indians is another problem American Indians face, Bradley said. In some traditional pueblos, she said, an Indian woman who chose to marry a white man couldn’t live on the reservation. In some cases, an Indian man who married a white woman lost his rights as an Indian. The pueblos are trying to maintain the culture, Bradley said. “So many of the ceremonies are sacred and only Indians can See Indian, page 12