Wednesday
Scattered T-Storms
High 84
Low 65
University priorities ?
A&M needs more classes
instead of a Special Events
Center
Battalion Editorial Board
Page 9
Aggie Players perform an
original play by local writers
and actors
Page 7
Aggies host
Stephen F.
Austin
tonight at 7
Page 3
Ga. (AP).
ak; Freddie]
les, he of||i(|
ias y*g°in&C
lanner, conf
'IPs leading
'vo-stroketj
lasters.
i the strendflol. 91 No. 130
'r-par 70 -J
s of grass,
1 ^he sprigs
v inches '
-reek, thi
ag into the
The Battalion
College Station, Texas
‘Serving Texsis A&M since 1893’
10 Pages
Tuesday, April 14, 1992
bird victim dies from explosion
lofted littlei
?s to savep
from that p]
1 sent him ini
Augusta Na*
vantage. I
•ught ithcrj
contrast tl
s that embarJ
il nine holes!
pionship atSj
finished bv
birdie putta
dammed the;
s and assuiE
st Americaai
lize in 1967.
w 32 and
fifing mate
ictory oftheij
ireer and hiss
nvestigators continue search for cause of disaster
I BRENHAM (AP) - Investiga
tors of last week's gas explosion
said Monday they were testing a
salt dome storage facility for apy
leak that might have prompted the
blast, now responsible for three
deaths.
I A woman severely burned in
the explosion became the latest
victim of the massive explosion,
elores Medve, 27, died Sunday at
buston's Hermann Hospital.
Her mother, Gloria Diver, 46,
lied Friday from burns she also
Juffered in the explosion. Diver
|was buried Monday afternoon in
Brenham, and services were
cheduled Tuesday for Medve.
Medve's son, Travis, 3, also
was injured, but he remained in
stable condition Monday at Her
mann.
The three were in a car that was
burned and nearly flattened in the
explosion last Tuesday. Authori
ties said the vehicle may have ig
nited the explosion when it drove
into a vapor cloud.
Jane Meinen, 31, also was in
jured and remained in critical con
dition Monday at Hermann, hos
pital officials said.
Meinen's 5-year-old son. Der
rick, was killed instantly when the
blast destroyed his family's mo
bile home.
The National Transportation
Safety Board and the Texas Rail
road Commission said Monday
they were still investigating the
cause of the explosion, which oc
curred near the Seminole Pipeline
Co. salt dome storage facility.
"While a final cause is not yet
known, our investigation now
centers on the injection well used
by Seminole to move gas products
into and out of the salt dome cav
ern itself," Lena Guerrero, com
mission chair, said in a statement
issued in Austin.
Investigators believe there may
have been a release of liquefied
petroleum gas products from the
storage cavern prior to the explo
sion that rocked the rural country
side, the statement said.
Yeltsin's Cabinet members
resign to protest parliament
Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s
Cabinet resigned Monday over
efforts by the parliament to change
his economic policies
MOSCOW (AP) - The Cabinet
of President Boris Yeltsin submit
ted its resignation en masse Mon
day, telling a combative parlia
ment that abandoning free market
reforms could heighten inflation
and block Russia's entry into the
world marketplace.
Yeltsin asked his ministers to
continue working a few days
through the end of the parliament
session, when he will decide
whether to accept their resigna
tions, Deputy Premier Yegor
Gaidar said.
The Cabinet's departure could
create the worst governmental cri
sis since the Soviet collapse in De
cember. The ministers had been
threatening to quit to protest par
liament's vote Saturday to de
mand changes in Yeltsin's eco
nomic reforms.
Several legislators said they
thought the resignations were a
bluff, and Parliament Speaker
Ruslan Khasbulatov addressed the
ministers with such derision that
they walked out of the 1,046-mem
ber Congress of People's Deputies.
"Don't try to blackmail us,"
Khasbulatov told the ministers,
drawing cheers from many law
makers. "We are not afraid of any
one or anything."
"If you want to work, dear
members of the government, you
have everything that is necessary
to your work," Khasbulatov
added.
time,intlsj
es began a si
duced20fi®
in 25 wo
riod, hetiasj
5 in worioi
he colie
gave
ly this year|
tage of as
broke Em
ecutivev
ny dowr
ifted Coupl|
hievement
expense c
Cup temi,
7826
JESDAY,
mg
DARRIN HILL/The Battalion
Blood drive: a pint at a time
Wadley Blood Bank attendant Michelle Albritton takes blood science major from Houston. The blood drive will be held this week
Monday in the Commons from Kendall Brock, a senior political from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Sbisa, the Commons and the MSC.
Report of 10th
sexual assault
alarms police
By Tanya Sasser
The Battalion
Police are becoming worried
about the increase in the number
of rapes in College Station as the
10th sexual assault in the city since
January was reported to the Col
lege Station Police Department at 1
a.m. Monday.
The victim in the case reported
that she was raped by an acquain
tance sometime late Sunday night
or early Monday morning, said
Sgt. Robert Cahill of the CSPD.
Cahill said the status of this
case is still pending and the de
partment also is investigating an
other sexual assault that occurred
behind Kinko's on University
Drive across from Texas A&M ear
lier this month.
"We've been up to our eyes in
this task force stuff," he said. "We
are still working on the assault
that involved a stranger, the one
by Kinko's."
Cahill said the number of as
saults reported to police officers
this year is alarming.
"This concerns us very much
and we are all worried about the
See Acquaintance/Page 6
Rapists attack
to gain control,
counselor says
By Alysia Woods
The Battalion
When rapists decide to at
tack, it has nothing to do with
sex, says a local rape crisis
counselor.
Brazos County Rape Crisis
Center Director Linda Castoria
says when her staff educates
community groups on sexual
assault, they are quick to re
mind people that rape is noth
ing more than a crime of vio
lence.
"It's their need to dominate
and control," says Castoria.
"Sex is just the weapon that
rapists decide to use."
Castoria says 60 to 70 per
cent of all sex offenders have
normal sexual relationships
with other people.
"That's one reason why I
See Anger/Page 6
TOS
, you
•tograplif
can
ile at tin
159
graphs ^
n bulletii
Dor in
cost fori
L0is$5J
Bush orders limits
on union spending
WASHINGTON (AP) - Presi
dent Bush's order limiting union
U Or yOl political spending — most of
which supports Democrats —
probably won't have much impact
except to create a bookkeeping
headache, labor leaders said Mon
day.
"Through this obsequious pan
dering to the ultra-right . . . the
president has given hypocrisy a
bad name," AFL-CIO President
Lane Kirkland said.
He said Bush's action was "en
tirely a political gesture" and
would have little or no effect on
the way the 14.2 million-member
Bush
labor federa
tion and its 90
unions con
duct political
business. The
AFL-CIO is
exploring a
possible legal challenge to the or
der, he said.
At issue is an executive order
signed Monday by Bush that re
quires federal contractors to tell
non-union employees "in the
clearest possible terms" that their
union contributions may not be
used against their wishes for polit
ical activities.
Surgeon general renews attack on teen drinking
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
surgeon general said Monday that
alcohol is leading the nation's
youth into emergency rooms and
jails, as she cited statistics ranging
from date rape to drownings to
make her case.
It's part of a crusade that Sur
geon General Antonia Novello has
been on for months, and the alco
hol industry was clearly irritated
after her news conference.
Jeff Becker, a spokesman for the
Beer Institute, said the industry
has been trying to get Novello to
discuss the issue quietly.
"I think the answer was shown
today," he said.
Novello cited figures to show
the problems caused by young
people abusing alcohol, including
"Many of
our college
students
seem to
major in
alcohol
abuse."
Surgeon
General Novello
accidents, deaths, assaults, rapes,
bad grades in school and
dropouts.
She didn't offer much that was
new; even the statistics that she re
leased were drawn from reports
already published in newspapers,
magazines and medical journals
over the past 10 years.
Among the statistics:
• About a third of the youths
committing serious crimes con
sumed alcohol just before the of
fense.
• More than 70 percent of teen
suicides involved frequent use of
alcohol or drugs.
• Alcohol is a factor in more
than half of the rapes among col
lege-age students; 55 percent of
the alleged rapists and 53 percent
of the victims were under the in
fluence of alcohol at the time.
"For every injury death, there
are 16 hospitalizations and 381 in
juries requiring medical care," she
said.
She cited material published in
a medical journal, the Journal of
Counseling Psychology, in 1987
on alcohol's role in rape.
"I was shocked by the data on
date rape: Among high school fe
male students, 18 percent — al
most one in five — said that 'it
was OK to force sex if the girl was
drunk,'" the surgeon general said.
"Many of our college students
seem to major in alcohol abuse,"
she said.
DULES
? or the
ssions
orts
Committee
By Melody Dunne
The Battalion
e mill!
i-Lites!
MEM'S
[TES ISA
2. Roc®
[NG.
The Texas A&M telephone registration
system has a new feature this semester.
Undergraduates attempting to register
by phone for more than 16 hours for fall
classes are being interrupted by a voice
saying, "The class you have requested
will exceed the 16-hour maximum."
Dr. Sallie Sheppard, associate provost
for undergraduate programs and academ
ic services, said a committee comprised
limits fall registration to 16 hours for students
primarily of associate deans from all col
leges recently decided to limit the hours
undergraduates could sign up for during
pre-registration to prevent abuse of the
system.
"Students register for their friends'
classes and hold them until they can reg
ister," she said. "More people get an op
portunity to register this way."
She said seniors were signing up for
entry-level courses — like Math 151 —
and then dropping the course so one of
their friends could register.
Sheppard said the goal of the subcom
mittee on pre-registration, a part of the
Academic Operations Committee, was to
allow more people to register for the
classes they need and to make registration
a more equitable process.
Graduate students have been advised
to not register for more than 12 hours, she
said, but the Student Information Man
agement System (SIMS), or computer reg
istration, would not stop them if they at
tempted to register for more than 12.
Dr. Kenneth R. Poenisch, assistant
dean of the College of Science and head of
the subcommittee, said one of the reasons
they chose 16 hours as the maximum is
because the average course load students
take is a little over 14 hours.
Until open registration begins on May
5, Poenisch said undergraduates who
wish to register for more than 16 hours
will have to contact the dean of their col
lege. If approved, the student can take an
add form to the Pavilion and can be regis
tered there.
"Graduating seniors or students who
have demonstrated in the past that they
can handle the extra load of 18 or 19 hours
will be allowed to register for the classes
they need," he said.
Jeanette Haynes, a speech communica
tions major from Houston, said she will
need to take 18 hours next fall in order to
graduate on time.
"I just heard about this limit yester
day," Haynes said. "In order to graduate
in December I need an extra class."
During open registration, students will
be allowed to register for the number of
courses allowed by their GPR, she said.
Students who have a 3.0 or better can reg-
See Committee/Page 6