lember of
-CS cable
State and Local
Forbes 400 will buy
television franchise
U
By Olivier Uyttebrouck
Senior Staff Writer
430,000 basic subscribers, according to the
McCaw release.
C The McCaw Communications Inc., Bryan-Col-
ege Station’s cable f ranchise, will soon belong to
&r me of the wealthiest men in the nation: Jack
Cent Cooke. The transaction may go through as
(U arly as late March, a local McCaw official said.
Cooke — cited by Forbes Magazine this year as
me of the 400 wealthiest men in America —owns
, he LA. Daily News, a Los Angeles newspaper;
he Washington Redskins and a number of thor-
mghbred horsebreeding farms in Kentucky and
* J /irginia, according to a McCaw press release,
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Cooke will buy the entire McCaw system in an
H-cash transaction that local McCaw Systems
lanager John Southard estimates at $755 mil-
pn. McCaw — the 20th largest cable company in
le nation — operates in 40 U.S. markets and has
Southard said the new owner plans no person
nel changes, from the senior staff on down. Nor
are any rate or programming changes in the
works at present, he said.
Cooke, who resides in Middleberg, Va., was
unavailable for comment.
The College Station City Council approved the
transfer of the local franchise on Feb. 12 and the
Bryan City Council approved the transfer on
Feb. 23.
Bryan City Manager Earnest Clark said the cit
ies based their approval of the transaction only
on the financial stability and management capa
bilities of the buyer — qualifications Cooke had
no difficulty demonstrating.
“If the buyer has the management capability
and the wherewithal we have no reason to deny
the sale,” Clark said.
“We have been told by the new owner that
there will be no change in the operation of the ca
ble system,” he said.
The two McCaw brothers, Craig and John, will
be the only two personnel changes, Clark said.
“There may be more personnel changes down
the road, I don’t know,” he said.
Clark said Cooke has made no indication of
rate changes, “as of yet.”
However, the latest Federal Communication
Commission regulations have stripped cities of
control over cable rates, a power cities previously
enjoyed, Clark said.
In 1964 Cooke founded the American Cable-
vision Co. which eventually became the largest
privately-owned cable company in the country,
the McCaw press release noted.
Thursday, February 26, 1987/The Battalion/Page 3
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Business association
supports drug tests
AUSTIN (AP) — The Texas
Association of Business went to
court Wednesday on behalf of
employers who want to give drug
and alcohol tests to their workers.
The TAB, which represents
about 3,000 firms in Texas, asked
to join in defense of a suit filed
against Minco Technology Labs
Inc. of Austin to stop random
drug tests.
“There is simply no basis, ei
ther legally or logically, to inter
fere with efforts by Texas em
ployers to address the menace of
drug use in the workplace,” said
the intervention motion, filed in
state district court.
The Texas Civil Libertes
Union filed the suit in the name
of Brenda Jennings and other
employees of Minco, claiming
their constitutional rights were vi
olated by the drug tests.
Philip Pfeifer, a San Antonio
attorney for the TAB, said the
TCLU suit involved only drug
tests, but the TAB considered the
suit a challenge to rights of em
ployers to give both drug and al
cohol abuse tests.
“We are intervening to stand
up for the rights of employers in
Texas,” Pfeifer told a news con
ference. “We are not pushing any
particular test. We want the right
to test for drug and alcohol abuse
in the workplace in Texas.”
Pfeifer said drug and alcohol
abuse cost Texas employers $11
billion in 1984 alone.
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Photo by Dean Saito
Investigative journalist Karl Grossman
American intervention in Nicaragua
parallels Vietnam, NY professor says
By Jade Boyd
Reporter
America’s ongoing intervention
in Nicaragua closely parallels the
United State’s involvement in Viet
nam during the 1960’s, an investi
gative journalist said Wednesday.
Karl Grossman, a professor with
the New York University System,
award-winning journalist and five
time author, spoke to an audience
of about 75 at Rudder Tower on his
book “Nicaragua: America’s New
Vietnam?”
The program was sponsored by
MSC Political Forum.
“We’re talking about a potential
confrontation between the United
States and the Soviet Union over
Nicaragua,” Grossman said.
Nicaragua is not the classic exam
ple of a communist country. Gross-
man said.
Its economy has both public and
private sectors, he said, and ban
ners and billboards across the coun
try proclaim, “There is no contra
diction between Christianity and
revolution.”
Grossman showed slides from his
trips to Nicaragua and Honduras
and cited examples from his inter
views with Sandinista leaders and
soldiers, as well as his contacts with
Contra leaders in Miami.
Grossman said most Contra lead
ers were soldiers in Nicaragua’s So-
moza regime, which was over
thrown by the Sandinistas in 1979.
He said human rights violations
by Contra soldiers far outnum
bered those of Sandinista troops.
“I’m worried about terrorism
and terrorists being supported by
my government,” Grossman said.
He said that U.S. support of the
Contras is a contradiction of the
charters of the United Nations and
the Organization of American
States', and it also violates the U.S.’s
own Neutrality Act.
Grossman showed slides taken
from the freedom fighters’ manual
that was printed by the CIA and
distributed to Contra soldiers.
“This is a terrorist comic book,”
Grossman said.
The greatest current danger sur
rounding the Nicaraguan issue, he
said, is the possibility of an invasion
by U.S. troops.
“There are people in the admin
istration who feel that an invasion
of Nicaragua would be just like
Grenada,” Grossman said.
He showed pictures of several
Sandinista arms caches and said
that Nicaragua would be consider
ably harder to invade than Gre
nada.
“They’ve trained an entire pop
ulation in guerilla warfare,” Gross-
man said.
He cited a Rand Corporation
study that said several thousand
U.S. soldiers would die and over
ten thousand would be wounded if
U.S. troops were ordered to invade
Nicaragua.
Grossman answered several ques
tions from the audience amid some
heated debate.
He advised Aggies to check out
the situation in Nicaragua for
themselves — both by reading and
by visiting the country for them
selves.
Nicaragua is only two hours from
Texas by airplane and the people
are friendly, Grossman said.
He said students would benifit
from a visit to the country.
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to
aiild
and SIGMA CHI present:
Texas Toga Tour ‘87
P
’,©1/
OTIS DAY J
and the ANIMAL HOUSE BAND
Thursday Feb. 26
Doors open at 7 p.m.
PARADISE BAR opens STRUTZ for one night only
Tickets available at Paradise Bar and Sigma Chi
For more information call 291-2729
Full Bar Service and Drink Specials
291-2729
1632 Sam Houston Ave. at 17th
Huntsville, less than an hour away
$2 off with TAMU or Blinn I.D.
°<\ P//A
c
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presents
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fir The Neon Madmen
m ■ ■hi
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OYSTER BAR
4
CRAWFISH
Autulcup
ALL YOU CAN EAT
CATFISH $4 75
| Julius
t Mil
The
Untouchables
Miller* Blue Band
103 Boyett (next to Campus Theater)
i
3-6 p.m.
3 25 /doz. oysters
Bargain
Beer!
846-3497
RALPH MACCHIO PATMORITA
The
Fri., Sat.,
Feb.27, 28
7:30,9:45
$2
Rudder
Theatre
Part
4!u
Janis
F eb .27&2 8
Midnight
$1.50
Rudder Theatre
MSC Aggie Cinema
The Concert Film
Port Arth Texas’
songbird performs
Me and Bobby McGee
Mercedes Benz
A Piece of My Heart
and other 1960's hits