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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 30, 1991)
>nmeu ier ed the de| months, lij d on a poli^ nade public, s been a lead the three-, against hj name has [ isible Palestir my Israeli-Pa ns ’Rec Sports Rec Sports ery les lions A \dy . Harring^ >y Anders .Harring^ B Brad Kagl e ' yavid Le ste: :oanP# > e neeHarO' Wednesday Partly Cloudy High 85 “We hate pornography, that is certain. What’s not so certain is what pornog raphy is.” — Reagon Clamon page 2 A&M ranked No. 8 Q> The revitalized Aggies continue move up polls ^ Under the sun Beutel Health Center officials give tips on playing it safe the sun in pages The Battalion Vol. 90 No. 142 USPS 045360 10 Pages College Station, Texas "Serving Texas A&M since 1893" Tuesday, April 30,1991 RICHARD S. JAMES/The Battalion David Huerta and Lance Hartsell show their plan for a Ronald McDonald House in Albuquerque, N.M. Class project inspires plans Ronald McDonald House might use students' designs By Peggy O'Hare The Battalion Future Ronald McDonald houses might feature the ideas and designs of Texas A&M students inspired by an environmental de sign class project, said an A&M student par ticipating in the project. Gabriel Guerra, a senior environmental design major from McAllen, said Ronald McDonald House officials will take models and presentation drawings back to cor porate headquarters for further examina tion. Ronald McDonald houses provide an in expensive place to stay for families of dis ease-stricken children seeking medical treat ment away from home. Many of the students toured Ronald Mc Donald houses in Texas and have met with officials to determine possible im provements. The houses' primary needs were more storage space, larger rooms and greater ac cessibility for the handicapped. The students have been working since late January to design the "ideal" Ronald McDonald House. Guerra and Thomas Deeny, a junior envi ronmental design major from Germany, de cided to design a home for the Bryan-Col- lege Station area. "This location would be ideal because we have four local medical facilities that would benefit from it," Guerra said. The nearest Ronald McDonald House is in Temple. The first floor of Deeny and Guerra's model is designed to be more convenient for handicapped guests with wide hallways, wide doorways and low kitchen counters. The kitchen is large enough to hold seve ral families and has ample storage space. Deeny and Guerra gave the model house a "Texas look" with a lined roof and a large orch extending around the back of the ouse. Deeny said their house was designed so it could be expanded. Guerra said because Ronald McDonald House officials use local architects to do the actual design, he and Deeny modeled their See Project/Page 8 Barton discusses gulf crisis U.S. representative explains causes, results of Gulf War to student group By Twila Waddy The Battalion U.S. Rep. Joe Barton met with Texas A&M's Student Advisory Committee on Monday to dis cuss the Middle East and other U.S. policies concerning the Per sian Gulf area. "We want to talk about the Persian Gulf, the consequences and causes of the war and what is happening as a result," Barton said. The A&M committee is made up of 50 students and meets with Barton twice a semester. Only 14 students attended the meeting because of tests and other activities related to school. Barton said. Barton gave an account of what happened in the Persian Gulf War and the latest events involving the Middle East. "About two weeks ago against mounting international concerns on the plight of the refugees, a demilitarized zone was put in place," he said. Barton also discussed several questions concerning the Persian Gulf Crisis. "The question today is, first of all, what have we done so far?" he asked. "Secondly, what should we do from this day for ward?" The group also discussed if they believed President Bush handled the Persian Gulf Crisis properly, and if economic sanc tions should have been given more time. Students at the meeting, how ever, supported the president's decisions dealing with the crisis. "It is always easy to go back and use hindsight," Barton said. "Knowing what we know now, I think the economic sanctions would have no effects at all on him." U.S. interventions against Saddam Hussein and his rule in Iraq also were questioned at the meeting. Official U.S. policy is to not di rectly intervene to topple Sad dam Hussein, Barton said. This question, however, is just another political area where there is no right or wrong an swer, he said. "If Saddam does not fall, he will try to rebuild," Barton said. "We would have been right where we were in August." TED ALBRACHT/Special to The Battalion Apartment fire A fire heavily damaged three apartments in a two-story wood frame house near campus Monday morning. A resident at 415 College Main Drive reported a fire at 9:11 a.m. in the unit next door. Two fire engines and a truck company responded and had the blaze under control by 9:50 a.m., said Lt. Thomas Goehl of the College Station Fire Department. There were no injuries. The names of the residents were not available at press time, but the residents had been notified of the fire, Goehl said. Three of the apartments suffered heavy fire and smoke damage, Goehl said. A fourth unit in the apartment building was unaffected by the blaze. He said the cause of the fire was unknown. C VadeBro* 1 Justin N# Mobley heads education group (sonLo"' 9 ' ;ien Clans* Maria' Liz ft 1 ' isonl-0" t: Maria C)1,t President hopes to stress positive aspects of Texas schools By Chris Vaughn The Battalion University President William H. Mobley recently began lead ing one of the state's most pow erful higher education groups during a time charac- terized by tight univer sity budgets, booming en rollment and cries for no new taxes. Mobley was elected president of the Associa tion of Texas Colleges and Uni versities (ATCU) two weeks ago in Austin. ATCU represents more than 120 Texas colleges and universi ties and is the only organization that includes public universities, private colleges and community colleges. Mobley said he faces a chal lenge as ATCU president during this critical time for Texas' higher education system. "The challenge for us all is to effectively communicate to the public and the Legislature about the importance of education in Texas at all levels and in all forms," he said. ATCU, founded in 1916, pro vides a forum where university leaders can communicate about common issues like credit trans fers. The group also provides a ve hicle for communicating to the public about higher education, which already is taking off under Mobley's guidance. ATCU had an insert on Texas higher education in last week's Newsweek magazine and re cently taped a show at Austin's PBS station about the challenges universities face this decade. Mobley said the third part of the aggressive public awareness campaign is awarding people for excellence in education. "We want to highlight the pos itive things going on in universi ties," he said. "We want to use that as a vehicle for showcasing things that might get overlooked by the media and, therefore, the general public." Last year, ACTU awarded the Outreach Programs which A&M and the University of Texas op erate in several Texas cities to at tract minorities to universities. Mobley, who served as vice president of ATCU last year, succeeds Dr. John Pickelman, chancellor of the North Harris County Community College. Mobley Quake rocks USSR Soviets send troops to aid rescue effort MOSCOW (AP) — A strong earthquake hit Soviet Georgia on Monday, setting off rockslides in mountain vil lages and killing at least 40 people, authorities said. The quake also was felt in neighboring Armenia, which was devastated by a 1988 earthquake that killed 25,000 people. There were no reports of damage or injuries in Arme nia. Police spokesman Zurab Kadzhaya in the Georgian town of Kutaisi, near the epi center, said Monday night about 40 people were killed and buildings in five mountain towns suffered widespread damage. The official Tass news agency earlier reported 30 people killed. It was not im mediately known how many people were injured. There were fears the death toll could rise as rescuers searched collapsed buildings in villages isolated by severed communications. An aftershock as powerful as the initial quake struck the region at 9:33 p.m. (2:33 p.m. EDT), Tass said. U.S. Geologi cal Survey spokeswoman Pat Jorgenson in Menlo Park, Calif., said the aftershock reg istered 6.2 on the Richter Scale. Soviet Interior Ministry troops already in the region to quell ethnic unrest were or dered to the disaster area to aid in rescue efforts. The initial quake struck at 12:13 p.m. (5:13 a.m. EDT).