Tuesday, November 24, 1987Afhe Battalion/pao. State and Local )n Federal officials alert centers fter recent Cuban inmate riots mselvesii cessary 1 force >ols. 0: se his oki >praisal berty, ai [OUSTON (AP) — Federal irri tation officials in Houston, reac- to riots involving Cuban inmates jrisons in Louisiana and Georgia, fly will at ced officers on alert Monday, sus- arriagett ic *‘ n § vacations and beefing up 1 and raos ^ at ^ our H ouston ' area deten- w icenters housing Cuban inmates, overcomt ^ out jq c u y, ans are imprisoned tor every ^Houston facilities, including a lave nodi' vately run detention center that ; notionol s the scene of a disturbance last exclusive w Year’s Eve involving Cuban in ner totht tes > R° n Parra, U.S. Immigration n society P ^ atura ^ zat ' on ^ erv * ce district ^lector, said. ryomi,^ j iave cur t a ji e( i information Miantay, iij jjj e f ac iiin es anc i we have post- :onsiderdlied all visits,” Parra said. “Our >re impotlin concern is to preserve the of wateilldings and the property and to m a soiled ollantayai ^ problems were reported. Ex- ' for a detention center near d with tk ility. Thei r my pro ” througt uston Intercontinental Airport, istory isf for Tht sure no lives are in jeopardy.” federal authorities declined to iden tify other facilities housing Cuban inmates. Deputy Director Michael McMa hon said, “We’re operating as far as they can see in a normal situation.” Besides cancelled vacations, INS officers already on leave were told to remain in the Houston area. In addi tion, riot gear — shields, batons and helmets with faceguards — were placed in areas where they quickly would become available to officers, he said. Parra said Cuban inmates who had access to telephones knew of the uprising Saturday among fellow Cu bans at a federal facility in Oakdale, La., before word of the disturbance was publicly known. “They have a very sophisticated network throughtout the prison sys tem,” he said. For that reason, Parra said inmates now were being denied telephone privileges. “It’s one of those things we’d rather be well prepared than react later,” he said. Parra said it was likely the alert status would continue until the prob lems in Georgia and Louisiana were ressolved and stabilized. Parra said INS intelligence agents were trying to determine if the out breaks were an orchestrated cam paign or random incidents. Visits between inmates and their lawyers would be continued in Houston but any visitors would be subject to body searches, he said. “We’re not going to deny them any due process,” Parra said. Last New Year’s Eve a disturbance at the INS processing center near the Houston airport left a dorimi- tory destroyed. Several of the in mates had to be transferred to At lanta, where a riot broke out Monday. Nineteen Cuban inmates had es caped from the Houston facility ear lier. A dozen were captured quickly while four others were found in Louisiana. The remaining escapees remain at large and were believed in Florida, Parra said. The Cubans were among the 125,000 who left Cuba in the 1980 Mariel boatlift. The State Depart ment announced Friday that Cuba had agreed to accept the return of 2,500 refugees from the boatlift, most of them criminals and mentally ill, officials said. In Laredo, 17 Cuban inmates broke out of a medium-security de tention center early Sunday by climbing through a steel roof grat ing. Authorities captured all but six of them within hours. Parra and McMahon said they did not know if any of the Cuban in mates incarcerated in Houston were slated for return to Cuba. Professor explains effects of alcoholism in biological systems j/ISC Council discusses putting end o partisan programs offered at A&M By Drew Leder Staff Writer The MSC Council Monday dis ced putting an end to what mem- ^called partisan and sub-par pro- ims that are being presented at xas A&M. At the final meeting of the semes- Council President Linda Hart- n told members that the MSC uncil should be more involved in mitoring presentations at A&M d trying to ensure high-quality Jgrams. We’re concerned about quality Urol," Hartman said. We’re not going to tell people at they can say at their presenta- ns and we’re not trying to limit ople’s ability for free speech,” Hartman said, “but our fear is that they (programs) don’t present both sides.” Mentioning a pari-mutuel betting presentation that was held at A&M this semester, Hartman said organi zations putting on programs that only focus on one side of an issue should be induced to be more non partisan. These partisan programs reflect A&M in a poor manner and council members want to put an end to them, she said. Aside from bad or partisan pro grams, Hartman said there is also a problem at A&M with repetitive pro grams. Some organizations don’t coordi nate their programming plans with other groups and the result is several presentations that cover the same topic, all being shown at about the same time, she said. This repetition often will lead to lower turnouts for all of the presen tations. An example of this was evident last week when several programs concerning AIDS were presented on the same day, she said. Hartman said that council mem bers will monitor the programming activities of organizations at A&M and then brainstorm to determine if there is a way to upgrade the quality of the programs presented. As it stands now, any organization that wants to put on a program can easily acquire a room in Rudder Tower, she said. At Monday’s meeting, the council also approved its own programming schedule for the Spring 1988 semes ter. Some of the programs scheduled include: • A concert by The Judy’s, to be sponsored by MSC Town Hall. • A presentation by presidential hopeful Bob Dole, sponsored by MSC Political Forum. • A discussion by Wiley Lecture Series speakers Robert McNamara, Sir James Callaghan and Sen. John Tower. • “I’ve Gotta Be Me,” a presenta tion by MSC Variety Show. • A presentation by MSC All Night Fair, titled “Bungle in the Jungle.” By Cindy Milton Staff Writer Alcoholism hasn’t been put in the proper perspective in the re cent political gambit to reveal the disease, a Harvard Medical School professor said Monday. Dr. Bert L. Vallee, director of Harvard’s Center for Biochemi cal and Biophysical Sciences and Medicine, explained the biologi cal effects of alcoholism during the University Lecture Series, “Toward a Biological Under standing of Alcoholism.” He said 15 percent of the U.S. population is afflicted with alco holism, which he defined as “ex cessive ethanol consumption ex ceeding dietary and caloric needs or norms and detrimental to in terpersonal, economic and pro fessional effectiveness.” He said 80 percent to 85 per cent of the population falls into the category of “occassional and ill-timed drunkenness.” Vallee attributed alcoholism to biological makeup and said stud ies show inherited alcoholic ten dencies, but he said the pattern of inheritance is not clear. Vallee’s interest in biological factors involved in alcoholism be gan in 1964 after the discovery of alcohol dehydrogenases — en zymes found in human liver. ’ These enzymes, he said, take and detoxify alcohol in the body. He said he was asked to treat several children who drank ethy lene glycol, or antifreeze. After trying several enzymes in the treatment, he said the extract from the human liver helped with the detoxification. With this discovery, Vallee be gan to isolate the enzyme and ex amine its effects in relation to ethanol in the human body. He said isoenzymes in the en zyme are specific in how they work with body systems. “These isoenzymes are living proof of how the body deals with Dr. Bert L. Vallee alcohol,” he said. "Most likely when we talk about alcohol or an alcohol-related disease, it is due to an enzyme effect of some kind.” He said the isoenzymes cause different reactions among indi viduals and among people of dif ferent races. Alcohol dehydrogenase, he said, does not protect the brain, placenta or testis — “things you' would want to protect the most,” he said. He said racial distribution of the enzyme was revealed in a study that showed more than 50 percent of the Oriental popula tion has inadequate enzymes to dehydrate alcohol. “If there is one racial group with a considerable difference (in alcohol dehydrogenases), I can bet there are defects in other places — especially people with real alcohol problems,” he said. Vallee said a treatment to man age the enzyme defects will prob ably evolve, but he added the sci entific community should make more efforts to put the problem of alcoholism in perspective. GATEWAY HALLMARK ttar REMODELED »hant ' e an entitf black ani ; d togethe' y, all in* iood Bull; one. But'I t, don’t | worry. 1* [ its two Dlass ol , 11-out” Ye' 1 stay in II) while * lers arou* 365 days/ rides on in ,me and J id at i doubt, at tiorjourt* sports .0^ 6 vV 0