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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 27, 1990)
le Battalion STATE & LOCAL 3 Friday, July 27,1990 'ellS, Vietna; mt ; tnanif, wnm t: ®ns as Jations. itinclm "enisl Artist adds new dimension wred to University’s newspaper IN PULL EFFECT By Eric V. Lewis UT'5 50. MH4T'5 ON N NflAHMOtoo TWf. ea:: )rU..\ by Scott McCullar © 1990 vr\... HELLO, THIS IS MERRITT TEVAV//6S, AND X THINK I'/M , KEFOKTIH6 FROft] THE HUBBLE TELESCorE. oh coy. T Breeder discovers new pickle possibility Pike finds cucumber variation r . This cartoon, which ran in Wednesday’s Battalion, was the subject of some controversy. .Wen bt.? :uses; 1 befe Photo by ThomasJ. Lavin Eric V. Lewis By TODD STONE Of The Battalion Staff I Art was always a diversion for se- Inior bioengineering major Eric Le wis, but it suddenly became employ ment as a cartoonist for The Battalion. “I’ve been sketching since kinder garten," Lewis said. “I never took it seriously. It was for recreation more IN [FULL EIFFECt 3K- W- WY, YOU HAVE than anything else.” Lewis originally intended to apply to The Battalion as a graphic artist, but he decided to follow a friend’s suggestion to develop a cartoon. His comic strip, “In Full Effect,” began this summer. “A lot of things I draw are about conversations or stories I’ve been told — jokes between blacks on campus,” he said. “I’m not targeting the black audi ence, but I want to show that a lot of funny things happen to blacks on campus.” Many of Lewis’jokes parody Afri can-Americans in his cartoon, and a few readers have accused the comic strip of being a racist commentary from a white creator. Lewis said he has mixed feelings about this view. “I could understand the racist ac cusations if it was a white person doing this,” he said. “Why couldn’t it be a black person? It makes them (critics) seem racist by assuming a white person is doing this.” Lewis said he has received mostly positive feedback, and his jokes have Hf EIGHT TO REMAIN YOU HWe m KW TO UM AlAW# tAlKlldO QdEfllOMl" IMKE’S THAT SMOKE COtW w tm? been well-received by African- Americans. Since The Battalion never has had a black cartoonist, Lewis believes he is adding racial diversity to the news paper. “I think it (Tn Full Effect’) makes black people feel The Battalion is more for them,” he said. “They can look at this and say, ‘We can identify with this.’ “It also says they can participate in The Battalion.” Lewis said his comic strip is often a retrospect of his past four years at A&M, and he hopes to continue with graphic art — perhaps opening a graphic design business on the side. He will graduate from A&M in Au- gust. For now, his next step is finding a job, and he hopes to go to medical school next year. Until graduation, Lewis will continue creating “In Full Effect” cartoons. “I want to make people laugh,” he said. “The fact it (cartoon) is by a black person is not important — the primary function is humor.” By Eric V. Lewis By ISSELLE MCALLISTER Of The Battalion Staff The pickle industry will relish a new variety of cucumber plant with fruit that matures at about the same time thanks to Texas A&M vegetable breeder Dr. Leonard Pike. Developed by Pike, this new vari ety is quite different from the tradi tional variety and has a tremendous potential for high yield. “It doesn’t even look like a cu cumber plant,” he said. Instead it looks more like an ivy, with leaves about, one-half to one- third the size of normal cucumber leaves. But the uniqueness of this variety, he said, is that all the fruit matures at about the same time. Cucumbers presently are picked by hand because each individual fruit ripens at its own pace. This leaves cucumber growers in a pickle. The new variety can produce two or three times the yield of the regu lar variety, he explained, plus they all ripen at about the same time. This makes mechanical harvesting economically feasible, and a higher yield means lower prices at the store. And since the cucumbers will be picked in a shorter period of time, farmers can use fewer chemical pes ticides and fertilizers. Pickles are big business in the United States, and Pike’s new cu cumber plant seems to have produc ers jumping for joy. G.O. Dalton, with Best Maid Pickles, said American consumers buy about $ 1 billion worth of pickles from grocer y stores every year, and they eat almost another $1 billion in restaurants. Cucumber growers from across the country are impressed with Pike’s discovery. “This is the breakthrough we’ve been wanting,” said Clyde Bradley, field manager for food processor W.B. Roddenbery Co. Inc. “This is what we want to see. Just get us some seed.” Pike said Texas cucumber grow ers have another reason to be inter ested in the new plant because it was bred and developed in the state’s growing conditions. About 25 thousand acres in Texas are utilized in cucumber production. About half of that is used to grow pickling cucumbers, he said. Pike said he has developed a new strain of the store-variety cucumbers as well. But farmers will have to wait be fore they are able to grow their own. Seeds will be available for further testing next spring, Pike said, but it is strictly experimental. The seeds must be tested for two or three years before they can be re leased to make sure they are safe and problem free. He said he does not know every thing about the plant. These plants seem to be more drought resistant, he said, but he is not certain. Pike, who developed the 1015 Su persweet Texas onion that turned into a multi-million dollar industry, hopes to have the same success with picldes. cision fori i thrm 'hep ? m : h° r ; ’hats 1 ned. way t ns op Agency sells illegal tickets to unknowing customers Dallas museum stores medieval treasures HOUSTON (AP) — Several hun dred airline tickets that will not fly are circulating in the area because the travel agency that sold them has not paid the airlines, officials said. A travel agency known as Old Times Tours & Travel has not paid the airlines for more than 800 tick ets, said Chuck Wolff, director of fraud protection for the Airlines Re porting Corp., in Washington, D.C. Airlines are watching for those tickets because their serial numbers are included on a list of stolen tick ets, Wolff said Wednesday. But it could be months before all of them surface. The U.S. Secret Service is investi gating the case, Wolff said. The travel agency’s telephone has been disconnected. Wolffs organization provides the blank tickets to the travel agents for them to sell to customers. The agency then pays the airline. Selling tickets without paying for them is tantamount to stealing, Wolff said. Hundreds of dollars per ticket can be involved in the case of international flights. The travel agencies must provide a bond or letter of credit before they get the blanks, but that money is to protect the airlines and not the cus tomers, Wolff said. He said it was “quite unlikely” that the traveler would get money back. There is no system to notify peo ple that they are holding bogus tick ets, according to the American So ciety of Travel Agents. Attempts to notify holders are complicated in a case such as this, where the tickets are sold by one travel agency to an other. DALLAS (AP) — While still haggling over ownership, the heirs of an American soldier ac cused of pilfering medieval art treasures from a German church have given the trove to a Dallas museum for safekeeping. However, the so-called Quedlinburg treasures will not be displayed publicly at the Dallas Mu seum of Art until the ownership is decided in U.S. district court, says Museum Director Rich ard R. Brettell. Brettell said professionals and scholars might be allowed to see the treasures, but that would be subject to approval by the court and both sides in the lawsuit. The public likely will get to see the art once ownership is clear. “Each party was interested in eventually dis playing the art for the people in Texas,” Brettell said. He said the pieces will be moved from rural Whitewright, about 60 miles north of Dallas, to the downtown museum “within the week,” but would give no details. “Anyone knows that when one is transporting important works of art, one doesn’t talk about the mode of conveyance or the timing,” he said. “That would be grossly inappropriate of the mu seum.” The Lutheran church, Stiftskirche-Domge- meinde of Quedlinburg, claims Joe T. Meador of Whitewright stole the trove while his U.S. Army unit was guarding a mine shaft where the items had been hidden. Attorneys for Jack Meador of Whitewright and Jane Meador Cook of Mesquite, brother and sister of the soldier, have been negotiating a pro posed move of the treasures to the Dallas mu seum. The ownership lawsuit is being heard by U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater of Dallas, who is expected to review the custody agreement. Fitz water on July 9 ordered the heirs and the church to agree on a facility to store the items until the case was settled. Meador, who died in 1980, bequeathed the art work to his siblings. The heirs claim to have seve ral, but not all, of the 14 treasures sought by the church. They say they have a 9th- or 10th-cen tury wood reliquary of Germany’s second king, Henry I, decorated with silver, gold, ivory and precious stones; a jeweled ivory-and-gold comb of Henry I; a Byzantine rock crystal flask; four small reliquaries in the form of turrets; and a small reliquary in the form of a heart. Two jeweled medieval manuscripts, believed held by the Meadors for several years, were sold recently on the European art market. Brettell said he did not know how many ob jects the museum would receive, but they include articles of gold, silver, ivory and crystal dating from the 8th to 14th centuries. Brettell said no one at the museum has seen the treasures, but “there’s no doubt” that they are the Quedlinburg artwork. He said an inventory of the treasures had been agreed on by both sides, but would be rechecked when they arrive at the museum. “The Quedlinburg treasury is undoubtedly the most important Carolingian treasury of the Germanics,” he said. “The objects were made for important kings. They were in a repository which was among the three or four greatest medieval repositories. COOPERATIVE EDUCATION REQUIRED MEETING FOR ALL STUDENTS WHO PLAN TO WORK IN FALL 1990 (even if you don’t have a firm offer) JULY 30, 1990 5:15 P.M. 102 ZACHRY * Receive final reminders and instructions for your work term from co-op staff * Meet in small groups with your faculty co-op advisor to receive additional instructions on your report * Meet in small groups by company's geographical location to discuss company policies and procedures STUDY ABROAD JR. FULBRIGHT Grants for Graduate Research Abroad Competition Now Open INFORMATIONAL MEETINGS Friday, July 27, 2:00-3:00 pm 251 West Bizzell Hall STUDY ABROAD OFFICE $800 $800 $800 $800 $800 $800 ASTHMA STUDY $800 $800 $800 incentive for those who enroll and complete study. Individuals (12 and older) who have asthma and medicate daily to $800 $800 participate in a research study. $800 $800 CALL PAULL RESEARCH $800 $800 INTL. ® 776-0400 $800 $800 $800 $800 $800 $800 AggieVision Option 23 Texas A&M's video yearbook