The Battalion
TATE & LOCAL
3
Friday, February 10,1989
The Battalion
Page3
^7
esidents continue
to vandalize dorms
despite renovations
Soviet technology, U.S. marketing
Texas company signs agreement to market Soviet space program
s m
3y Sherri Roberts
TAFF WRITER
Although waging B.B. gun
rars, instigating water fights and
etting trash cans ablaze may be
aditional forms of entertain-
nent for many residence hall res-
dents at Texas A&M, these thrills
ire hardly cheap.
Within the last two years, resi-
lents of Walton and Davis-Gary
alls have been evicted because of
he damage to the halls as a result
if horseplay.
Tom Murray, assistant director
if Student Affairs, said residents
if Davis-Gary caused more than
,000 in damage to the hall in
Spring 1987, the semester they
vere evicted. Residents of K-
amp in Walton Hall caused more
;han $800 in one year to their
amp, leading to their eviction in
Spring 1988.
Murray said residents were
icted not only as a last resort be-
:ause nothing else would work,
iut because the safety of other
■esidents was being threatened.
The decision to bill or evict res-
dents is made only after a com-
nittee of residence-hall advisors
ind directors, as well as various
epresentatives from the Depart-
nent of Student Affairs, has in-
estigated the situation.
Committee members try to de
termine patterns of vandalism,
; -ags—hose responsible, and the action
ournahsm depan h a t should be taken, Murray
t is exactly whauBaid.
Administrators use revenues
rom the Coke Fund — money
enerated from campus vending
tat FheUaBnachine receipts — to pay for
iall damages. However, if the
ate universities it unc ^ ’ s depleted and there is a
1 "altern of vandalism within the
iall, residents may be forced to
Jivide and pay the cost of dam-
ire representatuBges.
^ Residents suspected of vandal-
sm are given a series of warnings
nforming them of the possibility
hey will be billed or evicted un-
ke a coinmC iBess the acts cease or t he individu-
t have “ownen'fi
we mustans|fl
. and consider
f reedom we
again as join
'helming. I.aswi
s, understand lit
ability placed t;
e are the only one
joes in the paper
idsight we real
lone things dift
vas misinterpreir
ittett poor/yia
blished.
)ast and all wee
nd trying to full
provide the Tes.
h news and edii
•tubers sometn
advice from
boose whethtrit
□rial control by
nt or any A&Mt
ate is forbidder
n control of net
als responsible come forward,
Murray said.
Dan Mizer, student devel
opment specialist in Student Af
fairs, said before residents of
W 7 alton Hall’s K-ramp were
evicted, residents were given Five
warnings informing them of the
actions which would be taken un
less the vandalism ceased.
In many cases it is difficult to
determine who is responsible for
damage and whether or not it was
intentional.
“The unfortunate thing with
eviction and group billing is
you’re punishing the innocent be
cause you can’t Find the guilty,”
Murray said.
He speculated that alcohol is a
primary factor in the vandaliza-
tion of halls.
A former resident of E-ramp
in Walton Hall, who asked to re
main anonymous, said alcohol
was a major factor affecting the
behavior of hall vandals. Resi
dents of the ramp were evicted in
Spring 1987, after repeatedly
vandalizing the ramp.
“The only f actor causing it was
getting drunk,” he said. “People
tend to get more wild. I never saw
anybody do anything when they
weren’t drunk.”
Murray said that although van
dalism is not concentrated in one
particular hall, a majority of it oc
curs in men’s halls.
Moore and Crocker halls, two
newly renovated dorms which re
opened in Spring 1989, already
have been vandalized. Murray
said renovations, which include
new lighting, paint and floor cov
erings, cost more than $1 million
for each dorm.
Mizer said that within the first
week the halls were reopened, a
$400 marble partition was bro
ken. In addition, floor tiles have
been melted and windows broken
within the halls.
Murray said Student Affair’s
Damage Assessment Committee
would like to work with hall coun
cils to find possible causes.
AUSTIN (AP) — A fledgling
Houston company, whose founder
and half of its stockholders live in
the Texas Hill Country, has signed a
landmark agreement to market vir
tually all civilian and scientiFic serv
ices, hardware and data from the So
viet Union’s space program.
“This is a red-letter day for
Texas,” said Bill Rubey of Wimber-
ley. “We convinced them the future
is here in Texas.”
Rubey, heir to the Maxwell House
Coffee fortune, is the founder of
Space Commerce Corp. of Houston.
A handful of wealthy, old-line Tex
ans own stock in the company, in
cluding Jeff Bronfman, also of Wim-
berley, and heir to the House of
Seagram Inc. fortune.
Space Commerce executives in
clude Houston lawyers Art Dula and
Merrill Shields. Dula is the year-old
Firm’s president.
Rubey said the joint-venture
agreement, which could be worth
millions of dollars, was signed in late
1988 by Dula and Alexander Dy-
nayev, who heads Glavcosmos, the
Soviet civilian space agency. Rubey
said the agreement gives the Texas
company exclusive worldwide mar
keting rights, except Western Eu
rope.
“So all the stockholders are going
to get filthy rich,” Rubey said..
The Soviets hope the venture will
make them competitive with U.S.
and European commercial space en
deavors, according to Aviation Week
& Space Technology magazine.
Rubey said the Soviet decision to
contract with the Texas Firm was
based on a variety of factors includ
ing the participation of astronomer
Harlan Smith in the Menafee Foun
dation, which promotes joint space
ventures between the United States
and the Soviet Union. Rubey is
chairman of the foundation, which
owns his stock in Space Commerce.
Smith, the director of the McDonald
Observatory of the University of
Texas, is a foundation adviser.
“My role is not as a stockholder (in
Space Commerce),” Smith said, “but
as a catalyst to bring the people to
gether at the right time. If this works
out it will be very important.”
Rubey said the Soviets apparently
also were influenced by President
elect George Bush’s ties to Texas.
Rubey said Payload Systems Inc. of
is a senior jount
r of The Battalioi
imes
i.R.
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Boston, Mass., was Space Com
merce’s main competitor for the
marketing contract.
“If (Gov. Michael) Dukakis had
been elected,” Rubey said, “the Sovi
ets would have annointed the Boston
company. They selected us because
they wanted ties into the Texas es
tablishment and the state where the
next president is from.”
That may be so, Smith indicated,
because there still is some question
whether the U.S. State Department
will give the approval required for
American companies to launch satel
lites on Soviet rockets.
Space Commerce officials, how
ever, were invited to the State De
partment shortly after the presi
dential election to brief them on why
they should let U.S. satellites fly on
he Soviet agreement with the Hous
ton Firm still gives Space Commerce
the ability to market Soviet hardware
and softweirp elsewhere, notablv fo
the developing world.
Rubey said Space Commerce re
cently began marketing in Mexico,
where impending de-nationalization
of the Fishing industry has prompted
Mexican ofFicials to seek current in
formation on offshore fishing
grounds from remote-sensing satel
lites. The Soviets have such data for
sale, Rubey said.
“We’re not sure yet what all it
means we can do,” he said. “Dula
says it’s better than having the Mac
Donald’s franchise for the whole
world. Apparently, we even have
rights to sell scale models of the Mir
and to take tourists to Baikonur.”
The Baikonur Cosmodrome is the
Soviet equivalent of the Kennedy
Space Center in Florida.
Rubey said the agreement appar
ently gives the Houston Firm broad
ability to market even items only pe
ripherally related to the Soviet space
program.
If all goes well, Rubey said, some
of the Menafee Foundation’s profits
from the venture will be turned over
to the University of Texas at Austin.
“The foundation will be devoting
one third of the income we receive
from Space Commerce to UT-Aus
tin through Harlan Smith,” Rubey
said.
“We’ll also be applying to the State
Department for a license this spring
for a Proton launch,” Rubey
said.“But we don’t need a license to
get (experiments) on the Mir.” The
Proton is the Soviet’s chief expenda
ble rocket for putting satellites into
Earth orbit. Mir is the name of the
Soviet space station.
Dallas lawyers petition court
to pull Hampton from bench
DALLAS (AP) — Thirteen lawyers have signed a pe
tition to the Texas Supreme Court that calls for the re
moval of a state district judge who said he gave a killer a
lighter sentence in part because the victims were
“queers.”
The petition for impeachment of District Judge Jack
Hampton was filed Thursday with District Judge Ron
Chapman, who also serves as the state’s presiding judge
of the First Administrative Judicial Region.
Hampton came under fire following an article in De
cember in the Dallas Times Herald in which he said: “I
put prostitutes and gays at about the same level. If these
boys had picked up two prostitutes and taken them to
the woods and killed them, I’d consider that a similar
case.” Hampton also called the two homosexual victims
“queers” and said voters would forget about his com
ments by the time he is up for re-election in 1990.
“Completing this action today represents a bold and
courageous step on the part of these participants —
many of whom earn their living by practicing law in
Judge Hampton’s courtroom,” said William Waybourn,
president of the Dallas Cay Alliance, who is a lawyer
himself.
“Rightful-thinking people everywhere must do ev
erything in their power to prevent something like jthis
from every happening again,” Waybourn said at a news
conference. “We cannot allow any more Judge Hamp
tons. We must make it as difficult as possible for him to
remain in office.”
Judge Hampton could not be reached for comment
when called by The Associated Press. His court clerk,
who would identify herself only as Marcia, said, “He is
in ajury trial.”
Waybourn said members of the Dallas Gay Alliance
and others feel Hampton’s continued service on the
bench would only serve to “further the ignorance, prej
udice and violence tha!t accompanied Richard
Bednarski on his trip to Oak Lawn that night, when he
murdered Tommy Lee Trimble and John Lloyd Grif
fin.”
According to the state constitution, impeachment
proceedings may be begun by submission of a petition
from 10 lawyers who practice in the court of the tar
geted judge. The impeachment article stipulates that
“Causes of this kind shall have precedence and be tried
as soon as practicable.”
Hampton issued an apology about the newspaper ar
ticle, but Waybourn said it wasn’t a direct apology to
those his comments addressed.
i, “Judge, Hampton did not apologise to the gay com
munity,” he said. “He only apologized to eight ministers
in the Oak Lawn area. And he only apologized for a
poor choice of words.”
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