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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 12, 1992)
TCA Cable must fulfill its customers' needs and demands. -- Battalion Editorial Board Page 9 Police Beat Someone ignited a solid deodorant bottle wrapped in paper towels and placed the burning device outside the window of a second floor room of Mclnnis Hall. Page 3 The Stretch Run Lady Aggies fight to stay in SWC race tonight against SMU Page 5 The College Station, Texas ‘Serving Texas A&M since 1893’ 10 Pages Wednesday, February 12,1992 ush tightens grip on plan to discontinue use of CFCs ■ WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush, citing new forecasts of a growing ozone hole over the Northern Hemi sphere, announced Tuesday a speedup in phasing out ozone-destroying chemi cals. I Bush said the United States will phase out production of ozone-damaging chlo- rofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end of 1995, rather than by the year 2000, as lereed to earlier. WThe president said the United States was acting unilaterally. He urged other nations to follow suit. I Under terms of an international agree ment called the Montreal Protocol, the United States and other industrialized nations had pledged to halt production |f CFCs by 2000. B Bush's action comes after last week's government report saying the ozone lay er was being depleted at a much faster rate than had been believed. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration reported discovery of "alarming" levels of ozone-destroying chemicals over Canada, the United States and Europe. : prompt 1-up effoi That stepped-up effort to eliminate industrial chemicals thought to cause the problem. The NASA report said aircraft and satellite studies show that chlorine monoxide, a chemical that destroys the ozone layer, reached record levels over parts of the Northern Hemisphere dur ing some days in January. In some measurements, the chemical was found to be as high as 1.5 parts per billion, a level that one scientist called "alarming." 500 years later... Columbus still influences history By Becky Blum The Battalion Philip Tajitsu Nash Americans need to regard diversity as an asset rather than a liability, an edu cator said Tuesday night in Rudder Tower. "Demographically, we are becoming a country of many, many different peo ples," said Philip Tajitsu Nash, a law teacher and computer analyst. In a speech entitled "Rethinking Columbus: From Discovery to Multi- culturalism," Nash stressed the need to re-examine the way in which history is presented and viewed. "We need to move away from a strict ly Columbus-centric point of view and toward the multicultural view," Nash said. Columbus' arrival in the New World in 1492 helped enable the Europeans to accumulate great wealth and power that was previously unimaginaole, Nash said. More significantly, Columbus' fa mous quest for new territory and riches gave rise to a new attitude toward the environment. "We see people in (Columbus' time) who no longer stood in awe of Mother Nature," Nash said. "We see people who are going out to conquer the new See Society /Page 4 pfax cuts [offer short ■ term relief, critic says Tax hikes to finance | president's budget WASHINGTON (AP) — While ^families and investors await word ipn how big a tax cut they will get gjTom Congress and President Bush, millions should be watching .Instead to see how much their tax- i sare going to rise. Bush's budget, with its propos- 1s for a reduction in capital-gains ixes, an increased exemption for hildren and a new credit for some ome buyers, would be financed i part by tax increases exceeding 21 billion over the next five years. Among the targets: state and lo cal government employees; waters; pay-phone users; securi ties dealers, and buyers of certain life insurance policies. A Democratic plan to give a temporary credit of up to $200 a year to wage-earners would be fi nanced by higher taxes on couples with incomes in the $200,000-plus range ($100,000 for singles) and a new surtax on millionaires. The House Ways and Means Committee will begin deciding Wednesday what kind of tax-cut plan is called for and how it should be financed. The Democratic-controlled pan el is likely to reject Bush's propos al, which the president billed as desirable to boost the economy. But the committee probably will send the president's bill to the full House for a vote, along with a Democratic substitute aimed at pleasing the middle class. Bush, like Ronald Reagan, rel ishes a reputation as a tax-cutter flatly opposed to any tax increase. But just as Reagan signed a dozen tax increases in his eight years as president. Bush relented in 1990 and agreed to higher taxes to re duce the budget deficit. RANDALL NICHOLS/The Battalion Cyclist, car collide on Spence Street Jian Xun Wu, a research associate with the College of Mechanical Engineering , was struck by a car while riding a bicycle on Spence Street, a University Police offi cial said . Bob Wiatt, Director of Security and UPD, said the cyclist turned onto Spence Street from a side road into the path of the vehicle. Wu was taken by ambulance to Hu mana Hospital, where he was treated and released. An investigation is still underway and no tickets have been issued so far, Wiatt said. Expert assesses flood damage to farmland By Melody Dunne The Battalion Recent flooding of Texas A&M farmland downed fences and damaged fields, an agricultural expert with the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station said. A1 Nelson, agricultural research su- erintendent with TABS, said the ooding did little damage to soil at the A&M Plantation, but other University farms were critically damaged. On the 3,200 acres of the A&M farms, eight to ten miles of fence were damaged and a 5,000 gallon fuel tank was found on the main road. "No one has claimed it," he said. "It just settled there during the flooding. I just keep waiting for someone to come for it." Warren Sealock, head of farm opera tions for the A&M plantation, said workers moved all the cattle on the farm 15 to 20 miles away during the se rious flooding. When flood waters re ceded almost three weeks later, they moved the cattle back to the farm. James Pelkemeyer, executive direc tor of Burleson County Agriculture Sta bilizing and Conservation, said approx imately 1500 acres of Burleson County — where A&M farms are located — were seriously damaged. Most of the land where soil washed out will have to be re-leveled before crops can be planted, he said. "If the rain stopped today, we'd still have to wait two to three weeks for the fields to be prepared," he said. The two big damage areas in the agriculture industries are cattle and farm crops, specifically cotton and grains. In all of Burleson Country, there were more than 200 miles of fence de stroyed by the flood conditions, Pelke meyer said. Brazos County Emergency Manage ment Coordinator Jake Cangelose said the farmer's problem increases with ev ery day of rain. Cangelose also empha sized that fields would have to be re leveled. "Hoods really messed up the fields," he said. Nelson said farmers in Brazos and Burleson counties anticipate a later planting season if flooding and rains af fecting the Brazos and Navasota Rivers continue. Additional flooding would diminish farmers' profits from the crops signifi cantly, he said. There is a period of three to four weeks in which farmers can plant corn and other grains, but grain sorghum does not have as critical a time frame. Nelson said. "During the first three weeks of March farmers can still plant corn and have a good crop," he said. Rainy days, drought stays LOS ANGELES (AP) — Up to 30 inches of snow in the Sierra Nevada and heavy rain that caused the San Fer nando Valley's worst flooding in a half- century did not come close to easing the state's 5-year-old drought, officials said Tuesday. Flash flood warnings were in effect for a second day in the Los Angeles re gion and heavy rain combined with clogged storm drains to flood intersec tions and stall cars. Several more inches of rain was ex pected from still another storm bearing down on Southern California, where a 7-inch downpour Monday flooded part of the Valley. That flooding stranded motorists on car roofs and in trees until they could be rescued by helicopters. It was believed to be the worst flooding in the San Fernando Valley since 1938, said meteorologist Gary Neumann of the National Weather Ser vice. On Tuesday, the weather service re ported an unofficial rain tally of 1.82 inches in a half hour near Pomona. In Ontario, the Inland Valley Daily Bul letin rain gauge showed 2.34 inches during 20 hours ending Tuesday after noon. Despite the deluge and snow in the Sierra and mountains in the Los Ange les area, it wasn't enough to keep the region from going into a sixth drought year. $78 million aid effort reaches Moscow, citizens Surplus war rations go to needy Russians MOSCOW (AP) — Lunch at the Lyublinskaya soup kitchen was clearly different Tuesday. There was Campbell's cream of chicken soup instead of borscht, pork chops replaced porridge, and plenty of dental floss for the toothless crowd of pensioners. The cafeteria, which has been operating as a soup kitchen since Jan. 1, served up the first of 100,000 meals flown to Moscow on Monday as part of an $78 million airlift of humanitarian aid from the United States. In addition to the free three-course meal. Salvation Army volunteers passed out gift packages containing eyedrops, deodorant and dental floss — personal care items that are virtually unknown to Russians. "Everything is wonderful here. It's nice that peo ple are worrying about us," said 78-year-old Anna Kudinova as she eagerly inspected her disposable lastic plate and the gift package. "I don't want to die ecause it's wonderful to live when people are taking care of you." "Can you wash your body with this?" her neigh bor across the table asked about a packet of laundry detergent. Several dozen needy people — predominantly poor and elderly — ate at the soup kitchen Tuesday as at least twice as many journalists and photogra phers crowded around to record the U.S. aid effort. The meals, mostly military rations left over from the Gulf War, are being distributed to 35 institutions throughout the Russian capital. Included are pork chops, fish sticks, beef with gravy, canned lasagna, fruit-flavored candy, fruit juice, pudding and apple pie filling. Soviet spy shows no regret for FBI work MOSCOW (AP) — Former KGB agent Boris Yuzhin spent five years in prison — much of it in isolation — for cooperating with the FBI in San Francisco, but he said Tuesday he would do it all again. "I am proud of what I've done," Yuzhin said, days after being released from the Perm 35 prison camp. "There are some things in life that could justify plenty of years' punishment." Yuzhin said he began provid ing information on KGB meth ods "free of charge" after his first exposure to the West made him see the evil in the Soviet Communist system. In the United States, "I had a chance to pick up some real knowledge about what was do ing in my own country," he said. "For the first time in my life I had access to all publications which were prohibited here in this country," he said in rusty but fluent English. "I had a chance to pick up any book I wanted.... I realized that the official ideology which I studied here, which I was edu cated in here, it was nothing but a big lie." Yuzhin, 49, was among 10 po litical prisoners released Friday from the labor camp 1,000 miles east of Moscow. President Boris Yeltsin de scribed them as the last prisoners See Spy/Page 4