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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 7, 1987)
The Battalion /our Vol. 87 Mo. 68 USPS 045360 10 Pages Officials report deal possible on SDI testing College Station, Texas Monday, December 7,1987 WASHINGTON (AP) — Soviet and American officials, on the eve of Mikhail Gorbachev’s arrival in Washington, hinted Sunday that a compromise is possible on “Star See reloted story, Page 7 Wars” testing, while a massive dem onstration in the U.S. capital and a violence-marred protest in Moscow underscored differences on human rights. Gorbachev heads to Washington on Monday for three days of talks with President Reagan and the sign ing of a treaty to enminate interme diate-range nuclear missiles (INF) over three years. Both leaders say they are opti mistic about making progress to ward an agreement to cut long- range strategic nuclear weapons by half. Acknowledging a shift in the once-rigid Soviet opposition to Rea gan’s “Star Wars” missile defense plan, known formally as the Stategic Defense Initiative, White House chief of staff Howard Baker said the Kremlin’s position “now is a little dif ferent than it appears to have been a few weeks or a few months ago.” Interviewed on “Meet the Press,” Baker predicted that Gorbachev would move forward on strategic- weapon cuts “perhaps without re quiring as a precondition that the president abandon SDI or reduce SDI or postpone SDI, which he’s not going to do.” Meanwhile, a crowd estimated by police in the range of 200,000 took part in a demonstration march and rally in Washington to press for free emigration of Soviet Jews. “I have high hopes for new, for ward steps by the Soviets,” Reagan said. “I shall press for them in my talks with General Secretary Gorba chev in the coming days — for the release of all refuseniks, for full freedom of emigration, and for complete freedom of religion and cultural expression.” In Moscow, more than 200 plain clothes security agents roughed up Jewish activists and journalists dur ing rival demonstrations for and against Kremlin policy. Human rights is one of four items on the summit agenda, along with regional conflicts such as Afghani stan, Nicaragua and the Persian Gulf, bilateral relations and arms control. — * , - s '■ mi ^ T''- . i * - i V',.' . jsi ■ - fc •• •'*' ^ - - -SW ' Mudball ■*« CV ''' Photo by Mike C. Mulvey Members of K-1 play a mud football game Sunday afternoon on the per and underclassman of the company. This type of game is com- Quad following the intermittent rain. The game was between the up- mon in the Corp’s free time. Stone receives liver transplant with A&M students’ help 3one yVe 3 have | con iine irsgift orrec- ! By Karen Kroesche Staff Writer Christmas came early for former I Texas A&M student John Stone last week when he received a much- needed liver transplant, and so far | his gift seems to be a perfect fit. Stone left the Intensive Care Unit | at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas on Saturday, moving onto a special floor for transplant patients. His condition was upgraded from | serious to fair. His mother, Marion Stone, said I Sunday he was lucid for the first time since he underwent the nine- hour surgery Tuesday. “Today was the first day he | looked like himself,” Stone’s mother said. “He’s in a lot of pain, but other wise he’s doing just what the doctors want him to do. His spirits are very, very good.” She said her son is still at high I risk, however, and will remain in the hospital for another 25-35 days. “It’s like falling off of a mountain e’s starting to walk through the s; (that) is what one doctor and he’; woods; said,” Mrs. Stone said. The next three weeks are critical for Stone because he could develop a blood clot or reject his new liver, his mother said. Scott Donahue, a friend of Stone’s who has been coordinating local fundraising efforts to cover the transplant’s cost, said there always will be some degree of danger pre sent. “From what I understand, he’ll be on medication every day for the rest of his life to fight the rejection pro cess,” Donahue said. He said the anti-rejection drugs are expensive, but, like the trans plant operation, they are a necessity of life for Stone. Stone, 25, a second-year medical student at the University of Texas, Medical Branch in Galveston, took a one-year leave of absence from med ical school and began raising money for the transplant after it was discov ered that he suffered from Alpha-1- Anti-Trypsin Deficiency, whicn kept his body from controlling his diges tive enzymes and resulted in cirrho sis of the liver. Donahue estimated that about $36,000 has been donated to cover the cost of Stone’s operation. Al though the need is not as urgent anymore, he said, an additional $84,000-$214,000 will be needed to pay for Stone’s surgery. “Since the emergency’s over, we’re not in the life-or-death situa tion right now,” Donahue said. “Now what we’re trying to do is help him get the medical expenses paid.” Mrs. Stone said her son, who graduated in 1984, appreciates the support of his fellow Aggies. “He told me once, ‘You know Mom, it makes it a lot easier knowing so many people are behind me,’ ” she said. The family is grateful that so much attention has been paid to Stone’s cause, she said, because it peopl the importance of organ donors. “I want people to realize that if they give of their organs what a won derful gift it is,” Mrs. Stone said. “I don’t think people realize.” Stone realizes what he’s been given, and he is especially apprecia tive of the family that made his transplant operation possible, his mother said. “This is the greatest Christmas gift he’s ever been given, that’s what he said today,” Mrs. Stone said. “He said, ‘You know, I wish I could thank the family. I just don’t know how to thank them.’ “I hope they know that John is going to make everybody’s Christmas here. It’s a good Christmas gift.” Donahue said that with the Christmas holidays approaching, no immediate plans are being made for a fund-raiser on Stone’s behalf. But those wishing to contribute money can write the American Transplant Association, Box 822123, Dallas, 75382-2123, or the American Trans plant Association, care of the John Stone Fund, Post Oak Branch of First State Bank in Caldwell, P.O. Box 10130, College Station, 77840. A&M students suffer from eating disorder By Jill Radenbaugh Reporter Imagine not knowing what it’s like to be hungry. Imagine binging, vom iting and knowing you can’t stop. Imagine trying to nide the problem from everyone, even your own roommates. This is how a 20-year-old Texas A&M student felt before recovering from bulimia. She recently com pleted a six-week recovery program at Baylor Hospital in Dallas. The student asked to remain anonymous. “I hid food in my room,” she said. “I ate before meals, during meals and after meals. AH I thought about was food. It did not even matter what I ate, as long as it was food.” Bulimia is defined medically as eating until one feels discomfort.” Julie Cocklin, an A&M counseling psychology intern, said people with bulmia are typically not excessively fat or thin. “A bulimic is usually within 10 percent (up or down) of her ideal body weight,” Cocklin said. “Bulim- See Bulimia, page 5 n York trists rm Tents spring up as students wait to purchase tickets for Cotton Bow! By Tracy Staton Staff Writer It started Thursday at 8 a.m. with one tent, a couple of people and eight empty ticket windows. For a couple of hours, all was quiet. Then it grew. Tents sprang up like earth worms after a rain, and soon an Ag gie version of shantytown sprawled in front of G. Rollie White Coliseum. Dome-shaped tents and pup tents, large tents and small tents, fancy tents and pseudo-tents — almost 50 tents in all — were crammed into the area in. front of the ticket windows. Barbecue grills, television sets, VCRs, couches and ice chests pro vided some of the comforts of home. A few people were napping; more were amusing themselves. A few men lounged on a couch in front of a large green tent labeled “Cotton Condo” and “Cotton Bowl H.Q.” A few feet to their right, some people played dominoes and drank beer. Above the scene; the voice of a sports commentator buzzed through the air. Almost every television set in the area was tuned to the Dallas Cowboys game. Suddenly a little red truck screeched to a halt. A man carrying a package jumped out of the vehicle and trotted toward the building. “I’ve got a pizza for someone named Steven,” the delivery man yelled. “He’s over there,” someone said and pointed to the front of a line. While Steven was paying for his pizza, Scott Clendenin, a junior po litical science major, parked his mo torcycle next to the first tent at ticket window No. 1. Lured by the prospect of getting some of the 6,000 tickets to go on sale Monday at 7 a.m., Clendenin and his friends were the first people to pitch a tent in front of the col iseum. “We’ve been here since 8 a.m. Thursday,” he said. “I think I’ve Sondra Kolb waits in line for tickets. been gone six hours at the most since then.” Many students had only briefly left the ticket lines since they first ar rived, like Scott Welch, a senior engi neering technology major. “Just for your information, he hasn’t taken a shower since Thurs day,” Carol Batte, a junior aerospace engineering major said of Welch. “Yeah, but I did go home and change my underwear,” Welch said. “We thought that was a nice ges ture on his part,” Kevin Walters, a senior aerospace engineering major, said. Welch took a drink from a rum botde, then chased it with a drink from a Coke. “All our cups are dirty,” he ex plained. Clendenin’s group enjoyed its sol itary status for about three hours, then someone pitched the second tent. Five more tents appeared about 1:30 p.m.; at 8:30 p.m. Stuart Bur ton and Joey Kupper took their place as first in line at the last empty ticket window. “We’ve been first in line for the last three years,” Burton, a senior geology major, said. “It’s like a tradi tion now.” Burton, Kupper and George Coll, Photo by Mike C. Mulvey a Texas A&M graduate, were watch ing the Cowboys game Sunday af ternoon. “Dallas is losing,” Kupper said. “Dallas always loses when we’re in line for tickets,” Burton said. Despite their disappointment ii ie football game, the group sai< m the football game, the group said they have had no problem entertain ing themselves while camping out. “We’ve been playing football and basketball and dominoes,” Burton said. “And Pictionary and Trivial Purs uit,” Kupper said. “And drinking beer,” Coll said. Pictionary seems to be a favorite among the ticket waiters. “We’ve been playing Pictionary a lot,” Clendenin said. “Craig keeps winning, though. If you write one line down, he knows the answer.” Clendenin said waiting in line has helped him meet people. “We know everyone here almost. We’ve been playing games with ev eryone around us.” “Yeah, silly games like not letting each other sleep,” Patrick Bridges, a freshman biomedical science major, said. “I went to a formal last night and these guys made me come back out here. I even brought food for ev eryone, and they wouldn’t let me go home to go to sleep.” The students said they order food or buy snacks at convenience stores. “I just brought my lunch from Shell so I could put it on my credit card,” Clendenin said. “Yeah, I’m going to Texaco pretty soon,” Johnson said. “Lots of people order pizza,” Bridges said. “There’s a delivery man here every thirty minutes or “It’s a party around here,” Clen denin said. “We’re having a barbe cue with a bunch of people tonight. It’s going to be fun.” Clendenin said the changing weather hasn’t really affected the number of people camping out. “We’ve had some chilly weather, then it got hot and humid, then last night it rained,” he said. “We’ve had every kind of weather except snow here. “We had nice neat lines until it rained. We had to move a bunch of people up under the roof here, but everyone still knows where they are. In the morning we’ll get back in li ne.” Clendenin said one problem was finding a restroom. His friends went into the Memorial Student Center, but since he is a cadet, he can’t go into the MSC without a uniform. “I just wait as long as possible, then walk to my dorm room,” he said. Clendenin said they were afraid they’d be prevented from setting up camp in front of the coliseum. “When we first got here they were really blunt about not wanting us here, but they were still nice,” he said. “They said they were ‘discour aging us’ from camping out. We’ve been trying to keep everything really clean so they don’t make us leave.” The freshmen in Clendenin’s out fit, L-2, sang Christmas carols in front of the coliseum Saturday night. “We need some Christmas cheer around here,” Clendenin said. “I brought this Christmas tree out here. My freshmen dug it out from some trees they were going to throw away.” The tree was wired to a palm tree to keep it standing and was covered with Christmas lights. Clendenin said they were getting electricity through extension cords from the MSC, but he brought his generator in case officials told them not to use the MSC’s power. The group had been watching rented videocassettes much of the weekend. “We watched ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and ‘Caddyshack,’ ” Clendenin said. “And last night we watched ‘Big Trouble in Little China.’ ” Johnson said he’d enjoyed watch ing the antics of other students. “Some pretty funny things have happened around here,” he said. “Like yesterday, this guy was walk ing along in front of someone’s TV and tripped on the cord and pulled their VCR off onto the ground. “Of course, I’ve been Mr. Grace here, too, and I’ve tripped and fallen flat on my face when I w r as running through the tents.”