Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 6, 1989)
Texas A&M The Battalion WEATHER FORECAST for TUESDAY: Sunny and cool with tempera tures 10-15 degress below nor mal. HIGH:55 LOW:32 Vol.88 No. 109 USPS 045360 14 pages College Station, Texas Monday, March 6,1989 The Battalion ... and the crowd goes wild The Twelfth Man stands behind the Lady Ag gies basketball team as the team takes the lead against the University of Texas in G. Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack Rollie White Coliseum Saturday. The A&M team fell behind in the last two minutes of the game and lost 78-70. See related story/Page 8 Eastern Airlines urges pilots to return to work MIAMI (AP) — Eastern Airlines warned its pilots they risked their fu tures by honoring picket lines in the 2-day-old Machinists strike, which cut flights drastically, stranded w- eary passengers at airports and threatened to expand to a nation wide transportation snarl. Eastern pilots, who virtually shut down the money-losing carrier by honoring picket lines of the striking Machinists union, are risking not only their careers but “the very exis tence” of the airline. Eastern spokes man Robin Matell said. “By continuing to stay out, the pi lots are committing economic sui cide,” he said at a news briefing. Eastern was hit with a strike at 12:01 a.m. Saturday by the Machin ists union. About 8,500 mechanics, baggage handlers and ground crew workers walked out over Eastern’s demand for contract concessions, es calating a 17-month union-manage ment battle at the nation’s seventh- largest airline. Eastern ordinarily schedules 1,000 flights with 100,000 passen gers daily. On Saturday only 85 flights took off; expectations Sunday were for 125 flights, Matell said. Nineteen had gone by 1 p.m. CDT, the pilots said. The strike threatened to spill over into a union sympathy action against as many as 12 commuter railroads around the country, which could create rush-hour havoc Monday morning, especially in the New York metropolitan area. Strikers planned picketing at commuter railroads and received assurances no rail workers would cross their lines. But U.S. District Judge Robert Patterson on Sunday signed a tem porary order blocking sympathy strikes by workers at three railroads in the metropolitan New York area, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said. The order was not made public immedi ately. Ed Yule, general chairman of the United Transportation Union which represents conductors and trainmen on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Commuter Rail Road, said his workers intend to obey the law. But he said he has asked the railroads to have any pickets re moved. If his members try to cross picket lines, Yule said, “they could get their heads bashed in, they could get their cars turned over, they could get their families threatened.” Greyhound prepares to capitalize from strike DALLAS (AP) — Greyhound Lines, Inc., began shifting buses and drivers from across the nation over the weekend to the Eastern seaboard to take advantage of the transporta tion crunch being created by the Eastern Airlines strike. The Dallas-based bus line an nounced it is immediately adding 32 express runs that could move thou sands of passengers between New York, Boston, Washington, Philadel phia and Providence, R.I. Greyhound spokesman George Gravley in Dallas said top officers of the firm’s East Coast subsidiary, Eastern Greyhound Lines, were pre paring over the weekend to meet heightened demand on the nation’s roadways. David W. Batchelor, president of Eastern Greyhound, said the com pany hopes to take advantage of the air strike that is threatening to dis rupt much of the nation’s travel structure. Eastern has been crippled as union pilots walked out to join strik ing Machinists, and the transporta tion situation could worsen consider ably if as many as 12 commuter railroads join the work stoppage. “This is our opportunity to show people how great bus service is,” Batchelor said. He said many of those who will be riding won’t have been on commer cial buses since their college-age days, and Greyhound sees this as an opportunity to win them back as full time riders. Batchelor said about 200 buses are being shifted to the East Coast but that it is not much more of a problem than meeting other peak demand periods. Four A&M cadets conquer Ranger training By Andrea Warrenburg REPORTER Try to imagine nine weeks of three hours of sleep and one and a half meals per day. On top of that, add walking about 50 miles daily, jumping out of helicopters and rapelling down a cliff with your buddy on your back. It may sound like scenes from a Hollywood war movie, but to four senior Texas A&M Army ROTC cadets, it was reality. Micheal Bottiglieri, a management major from San Antonio, Paul Cooke, a meteorol ogy major from College Station, Robert Har ris, a recreation and parks major from Sara toga, Calif, and Bryce Reeves, an industrial education major from Houston recently graduated from the LT.S. Army Ranger School in Fort Benning, Ga. The purpose of the school is to teach lead ership skills under the mental and physical stress in realistic combat situations. The train ing takes place in four phases and environ ments, each lasting 14 days. The four phases are the the Fort Benning phase, the mountain phase conducted near Dahlonega, Ga., the Florida or swamp phase conducted in Florida and the desert phase conducted in Utah. T he cadets use live rounds, demolitions, light anti-tank weapons and grenade launch ers. They constantly battle the environment and hunger. At times, they approach exhaus tion. “For the first week or two, all you have are pizza and Baskin Robbins dreams,” Cooke said. Harris said, “You could have sold a Snick ers Bar to any of us for $ 1,000.” Cadets must complete all four phases and the leadership requirements, which include planning and executing a combat mission, to graduate. Only 73 slots were open to cadets from schools around the nation. Of the 300 cadets and enlisted men who attend, only 46 percent graduate. 'When you’re completely tired, hungry and at your low point, that’s when they call on you to be in charge of other tired and hungry people,” Cooke said. “It’s your mission and they grade you on it.” Reeves had to repeat the desert phase be cause he lacked the primary leadership phase. He had to endure an extra two and a half weeks of training while his buddies went home. “You have to want it all the way,” Reeves said. “I was willing to die for it. I would have never returned to A&M if I hadn’t grad uated. If you go to Ranger school and don’t graduate, your military career is over before it even starts.” All four agreed the swamp phase was the toughest. “The things that have the greatest effect on your body are lack of sleep and lack of food,” Harris said. “In the swamp phase you had no food, no sleep and you were wet lor 14 con secutive days.” Bottiglieri said, “You start to value the little things that most people take advantage of like dry socks and brushing your teeth.” Combined weight loss during'the training reached about 140 pounds among the four men. Cooke suffered a stress fracture in his right foot, Harris injured his a knee, Reeves tore ligaments in his ankle, broke two toes and suffered from dehydration, and Bottig lieri injured his ankle. Was all this really worth it? “If you graduate and want a career in the Army, you can get almost anything you want,” Cooke said. “And you gain confidence knowing you can overcome anything.” Reeves said, “It’s survival and learning by doing, not going to class and falling asleep.” Four more A&M cadets will attend Ranger school this summer. They are juniors Eric Layne, Greg Christopher, Brian Hammer and Steve Moore. Buddhist parade turns into Tibetan independence riot BEIJING (AP) — Police and Ti betan protesters traded gunfire in Lhasa on Sunday after an illegal Buddhist parade turned into a riot, leaving 11 dead and more than 100 injured, the Xinhua News Agency reported. Hundreds of Tibetans demand ing freedom from Chinese rule smashed windows, looted shops, res taurants and hotels and vandalized police cars in Lhasa, the capital of the disputed region, the state-run news agency said. The violence came on the first an niversary of another anti-Chinese demonstration in which 24 people were reported killed. It also came five days before the 30th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule that led to the exile of Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Xinhua, reporting from the Lhasa, said early Monday that one policeman and 10 other people were killed in the riots. Among the in jured were 40 policemen and more than 60 rioters. It said “separatists” fired at po licemen and “the police were forced to fire shots as no other means could stop the rioters.” The report said the disturbance began at noon when 13 Buddhist monks and nuns began an illegal pa rade in the Barkhor marketplace area of central Lhasa. It said they waved banners and shouted “Inde pendence for Tibet.” They were joined by several hun dred people who began throwing stones at a police station in Barkhor, Xinhua said. About 3 p.m. (1 a.m. CDT), an es timated 600 rioters emerged on East Beijing Street, smashing windows, robbing more than 20 restaurants, hotels and shops and setting fire to furniture. Xinhua said the rioters made four attacks on government and Commu nist Party office buildings, smashed traffic posts and lights and damaged more than 20 police vehicles. It was unclear from the Xinhua report whether police or protesters fired first. Winter storm hits Texas, hinders travel Record cold continued its icy grip on much of Texas, prompt ing business and school closings, airline and bus rescheduling, and plenty of video rental business. Dallas Fort Worth Interna tional Airport recorded 20 de grees Sunday afternoon — a re cord for the date — and a wind chill of 17 degrees below zero. American Airlines flights were cut by about 60 percent Sunday as the Dallas area recorded 2 to 3 inches of snow, spokesman Mary O’Neill of American said. The intense cold has initiated the natural gas curtailment policy again; several schools closed in the Dallas-Fort Worth area today. The Texas Highway Depart ment was discouraging travel over much of Texas Sunday. The northeast section of the state was reporting a buildup of ice on overpasses and bridges. Highway officials advised travelers to avoid venturing north of a line from Junction to College Station. In terstate 35 north of Temple was reported to be icy and hazardous. However, no roads were closed. The Houston Cougars basket ball team spent another day at a DFW airport hotel, awaiting a flight to Fayetteville. Their regu lar season finale against Arkan sas, scheduled for Sunday, was postponed until today. Students find skills test easier than anticipated AUSTIN (AP) — The state of Texas unveiled its new basic skills test over the weekend, and the first group of students to take it said it was less stressful and less difficult than they expected. As part of the Texas Academic Skills Program mandated by the Legislature in 1987, high school seniors admitted to public com munity colleges or universities this fall must pass the test before enrolling in classes beyond the sophomore level. About 8,500 students at 118 lo cations across the state were scheduled to take the Texas Aca demic Skills Program exam Sat urday. In the Austin area, 665 stu dents took the test at the Univer sity of Texas and at an Austin Community College test center in Round Rock. After four hours of calculating, writing, problem-solving and reading — preceded by days of cramming and nail biting — seve ral students rated the new basic skills test as less stressful and less difficult than college entrance ex ams they had taken. Although education officials said they are anxiously awaiting the first test scores, many said Saturday’s test results will not gauge how well high school se niors will perform on the exam. About 76 percent, or 6,500, of the more than 8,500 students who registered for the Saturday’s exam are college sophomores and first-semester juniors, most of whom are education majors, said Nolan Wood, director of teacher assessment for the Texas Educa tion Agency. College sophomores and ju niors with majors in education were allowed to take the exam in lieu of the Pre-Professionl Skills Test, required for students seek ing admission to a state-approved teacher education program. Language dorm faces obstacles at A&M By Melissa Naumann REPORTER While foreign language students at Duke Uni versity have an excellent opportunity to parlent francais and hablan espanol, their foreign lan guage dorm is not a feasible project everywhere, Dr. Luis Costa, head of Texas A&M’s modern languages department, said. “I'm not saying they (foreign language resi dence halls) don’t happen at public schools, but they are more common at smaller, private liberal arts colleges,” Costa said. The Duke hall, which opened as a foreign lan guage dorm in Fall 1988, houses students study ing French, Spanish and German to encourage immersion in the foreign language and culture. “It’s great if you’re serious about what you do,” Costa said. “You can immerse yourself in the lan guage constantly.” Trey Jacobson, president of A&M’s Residence Hall Association, said the project faces two obsta cles here. “What we run into with something like that is we have to create a new dorm or kick everyone out of one,” Jacobson said. Duke’s solution to the building problem was solved easily, however. Since the response to the foreign language dorm has been overwhelmingly positive, the program will move to a new, $6.5 million hall, Dr. David Jamieson-Drake, assistant dean for residential life at Duke, said. “The number of applications we have received for the fall has doubled since last year so we need room,” he said. Eric Dudley, president of the dorm, said 47 students live in the dorm and at least 72 will live there in the fall. In the new dorm, French, Span- “I I’m not saying they (foreign language residence halls) don’t happen at public schools, but they are more common at smaller, private liberal arts colleges.” — Dr. Luis Costa, head of modern languages department ish and German students will live on separate floors with other students who are native speak ers. Although speaking a foreign language in the dorm is not mandatory, many students choose to do so, Dudley said. “Speaking in foreign languages is strongly em phasized,” he said. “Of course, it depends on the person, the mood and the urgency of the messa- ge-” The dorm is also the perfect place to learn about foreign cultures, Jamieson-Drake said. “We encourage most of our students to go overseas and study for at least one semester,” he said. “This lets them know the culture before they go.” Dudley said that because the dorm’s faculty advisers are native speakers of the foreign lan guages and frequently visit their native countries, the students are kept updated on the cultures. T am a Spanish student and my adviser brought the Spanish version of Trivial Pursuit recently,” he said. Jacobson said the program probably would be accepted here if it weren’t solely for foreign lan guage students. “If students could get involved just for the cul tural benefits, it would get a stronger response,” he said. “It would be a neat opportunity for those studying international business or international finance.” An off-campus version of this program, such as a foreign language/international students house, would be more realistic at A&M, Costa said. Although Costa would like to start a program such as this, he said it is not simple to arrange. “We have thought about it here but it’s not anything I see on the near horizon,” Costa said.