Unseasonably warm
Mostly sunny
Highs in the 80s
Individuals are not entitled
to subsidies from the
National Endowment for
the Arts
Battalion Editorial Board
Page 9
Memorial fun run
to benefit cancer society
set for Saturday
Page 2
A&M, UT
father-son
combinations
meet in Austin
Sunday
Page 5
The Battalion
Vol. 91 No. 108 College Station, Texas
“Serving Texas A&M since 1893”
. 8 Pages Friday, March 6, 1992
Student group monitors political bias
By Gina Howard
The Battalion
A conservative student group
this week began placing student
monitors in selected classrooms
to check for possible political
bias.
The Texas A&M chapter of
the Young Conservatives of
Texas began monitoring classes
Monday. The monitoring is tak
ing place mainly in the history.
political science and English de
partments.
Andy Keetch, chairman of
YCT, said the organization feels
professors may be allowing per
sonal biases to affect lectures
and grading.
"Students pay money to
Texas A&M for an education, not
an indoctrination," Keetch said.
"We want Aggies to know which
rofessors teach with academic
onesty and which largely
preach ideology — especially
when their grade might lie in the
balance."
He said professors being
monitored will not be aware a
student from YCT is present in
the room.
"We will not be announcing
ourselves," Keetch said.
At least two different people
will sit in on the targeted classes
for about three class days each.
After the information has been
collected, a general meeting will
be held where members will dis
cuss what has been found.
"We will get together and de
cide which professors and classes
deserve annotation based on the
criteria we've made decisions
by," Keetch said.
Keetch said at this time the
chapter's standards for measur
ing classroom bias have not yet
been explicitly defined.
"We do have some criteria
developed, but it will be chang-
See Group/Page 8
Campaign trail ends
for Nebraska senator
WASHINGTON (AP) - On
paper. Bob Kerrey was perfect
presidential material. But in per
son, he often fell short.
The Nebraska senator ended
his Democratic candidacy Thurs
day with wit and warmth that he
didn't always show on the cam
paign trail, and with bottom-line
honesty that did come through —
often to his detriment.
Kerrey's credentials were un
surpassed: Vietnam Medal of
Honor, self-made millionaire busi
nessman, former governor, slayer
of two Republican incumbents in a
conservative state, former
boyfriend of actress Debra
Winger.
But the magic that worked in
Nebraska was missing in his first
national campaign. Kerrey admit
ted as much at a wistful and some
times emotional news conference
as he abandoned the race.
"A campaign depends upon
the . . . candidate's capacity to com
municate and to establish trust/'
See Kerrey/Page 8
KARL STOLLEIS/The Battalion
Me and Mario down by the schoolyard
Gary Peterson, a freshman general studies major, plays a game by the MSC Recreation Committee and will be there be on
at the traveling Nintendo show Thursday. The tour is sponsored campus today from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Democrats
meet in Dallas
Presidential hopefuls debate plans
to revive nation's ailing economy
DALLAS (AP) - The Demo
cratic presidential candidates
clashed over economic-revival
plans Thursday in a pre-Super
Tuesday debate. Paul Tsongas'
pro-business plan was labeled
“trickle down" and a boon to the
rich at the expense of the middle
class.
The economy dominated the
first half-hour of the 90-minute
ABC-TV debate, with all four can
didates scoring President Bush's
policies. When they got around to
debating their own, Tsongas took
the heat.
Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton
said Tsongas' plan to offer a capi
tal gains tax break mirrored the
Reagan-Bush 1980s policies he
said cost 2 million manufacturing
jobs and directed 60 percent of the
income gains in the last decade to
the richest 1 percent of the popula
tion.
“That's exactly what we did in
the 1980s and the economy went
downhill and it's wrong,” Clinton
said.
“Average wages went down,
the work week lengthened, pover
ty exploded and we lost our com
petitive edge,” he said.
Clinton supports many of the
investment incentives favored by
Tsongas but said the money the
former Massachusetts governor
would spend on a capital gains
break should go for a middle-class
tax break, job training and educa-.
tion programs.
“Put people first/' Clinton
said.
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, whose
campaign is teetering and could
end if he does not finish well Sat-,
urday in South Carolina, echoed
Clinton, saying Tsongas' plan was
Reaganomics revisited.
“That's really trickle down,"
Harkin said.
Tsongas was resolute, saying
the wealthy would pay for his
capital gains tax break and that
the venture capital created would
help struggling small and start-up
businesses.
“There is an inevitability to
what happens if you don't in
vest,” Tsongas said.
Tsongas said the middle-class
tax cut would give families 97
cents a day but not a job. Clinton
retorted that the cut was not de
signed for job growth, but was a
downpayment on tax fairness.
Animal rights activists
clash with researchers
By Robin Roach
The Battalion
Animal testing for medical
research has escalated into a
controversial issue over the past
decade.
R e -
searchers
and ani-
m a 1
rights
a d v o -
cates are
debating
the issue
as to
who is morally and logically
correct in their stance.
People for the Ethical Treat
ment of Animals, the largest an
imal rights organization, is
deeply involved in protecting
animals from being used in any
type of research.
"Our main goal at PETA is
to educate people of animal suf
fering and urge them to do
something about it," said Emily
Oesterling, assistant mail room
supervisor at PETA in Washing
ton D.C.
PETA encourages people to
demonstrate for the prevention
of animal suffering including
not eating meat or avoiding
purchases of leather and fur.
Oesterling said.
"Utopia for us (PETA)
would be to have no animals in
cages and no animal suffering
as a result of medical research,"
she said.
Supporters of animal rights
argue that animal testing is un
necessary, and that there are al
ternatives to every experiment
done with animals that would
not require animals to be in
volved in experimentation.
But people on the opposite
end of the spectrum who sup
port animal testing for medical
research argue that medical re
search still requires the use of
animals to gain insight to the
human body.
Elvin E. Smith, associate
dean for research at the College
of Medicine and associate vice
president of the Texas A&M
Health Science Center, ex
pressed the absolute necessity
of animals for experimentation.
"Animals are an essential
component to research, and it
would be impossible without
them," Smith said. "There are
no true substitutes or alterna
tives with most studies."
Animal rights advocates
suggested that computer mod
eling of the human body, cell
See Associate/Page 8
B-CS employment opportunities grow
By Matari Jones
The Battalion
More job opportunities will be available for
Texas A&M students in the Bryan-College Sta
tion area with solid hiring activity and fewer
employment cutbacks according to the latest
employment outlook-survey.
"There is a potential for almost 1,000 new
jobs," said Frank Murphy, director of the Small
Business Development Center. "At least 600
already have been filled."
With the addition of Sam's Club, three new
restaurants and grocery stores, job potential
will continue to grow, he said.
"Bryan-College Station is becoming more
and more regional," Murphy said. "We en-
B-CS Area Hiring Forecast
compass eight counties and people come here
to shop, eat and seek health care."
Murphy also pointed out that most of the
jobs will be part-time because of the student
population.
He credits the population explosion as the
reason for this economic development.
"Once we reached the magic plateau of
100,000 (in population), businesses started
flooding in," he added.
This employment outlook survey was con
ducted by Manpower Inc., the world's largest
temporary help firm.
Through telephone interviews with local
businesses the survey measured employers' in
tentions to increase or decrease their perma
nent work force.
The springtime outlook appears most
promising in durable and non-durable goods
See Job/Page 8
AP survey shows people say 'no, thanks' to Bush's plan
Workers reject lower witliholding
WASHINGTON (AP) - Large
numbers of American workers are
saying "no, thanks” to President
Bush's election-year offer of a bit
more take-home pay now in ex
change for smaller tax refunds
next year.
An informal survey by The As
sociated Press of large employers
and payroll-preparation services
shows that in some companies
nearly half the workers are filing
new W-4 forms to keep income-
tax withholding at last year's lev
el.
If that trend holds, it would do
serious damage to Bush's idea of
injecting an extra $2 billion a
month into the economy simply
by giving workers part of their tax
refunds in advance.
“Something tells me a number
of taxpayers may take me up on
this one,” Bush said when he an
nounced the change during his
Jan. 28 State of the Union mes
sage.
Families, he said, need the ex
tra money now “to help pay for
clothing, college or to get a new
car.”
The change generally took ef
fect March 1. It turns out that
while a lot of families might be
able to use an extra $6 or $7 a
week, they prefer to let the gov
ernment hold it and send it back
in a lump sum early next year. The
difference in refund is about $172
a year for a single person, $345 for
a married person and $690 for a
two-earner couple.
“Large numbers of our work
ers are having their withholding
changed to nullify the effects of
the reduction," said Paul Allen at
Eastman Kodak headquarters in
Rochester, N.Y.
“We can't quantify it yet, but
the payroll department tells me
it's the majority” of the 39,600 em
ployees.
A significant number of
DuPont's 20,000 employees in the
Wilmington, Del., area won't ac
cept lower withholding, a
spokesman said.
Hallmark Cards employs
about 6,700 at its Kansas City
headquarters and as many as 40
percent of them have requested
that last year's higher withholding
rates be retained, said spokesman
Adrienne Lallo.