The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, February 12, 1992, Image 1

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-- 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