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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 6, 1994)
Page 2 SiSS® mmmmm the battalion Monday • June 6,15 Med Students graduate Students told to look after their communities Stew Milne/THF Battalion Hangover? This furry, frisky fellow frolics around campus after a hectic first week of summer classes. Worshipers flock to Egyptian monument By Nancy Treacy The Battalion The Texas A&M University Health Science Center College of Medicine graduated 47 physi cians Saturday. Dr. Richard DeVaul, vice presi dent for Health Affairs and dean of the College of Medicine, opened the ceremony by praising those involved in “providing a quality education to the graduates.” DeVaul stressed the impor tance of the public trust in medi cine and told the graduates they are responsible to look after the health and well-being of the com munity they live in. Dr. Donald Seldin, University of Texas Systems professor of in ternal medicine, told the gradu ates that health care reform and biomedical science will dramati cally alter today’s medical field. “The revolution in health care will affect everyone, not only physicians,” he said. Seldin, founding chairman of the University of Texas South western Medical School’s De partment of Medicine, spoke to the graduates about the unset tling times that medicine faces. “Something will have to be done to rein in costs and assure access to health care,” he said. Seldin said he is disappointed in the health care system and told the graduates to make sure care of the elderly is conducted in a dignified manner. He noted that society thinks of physicians in a "priestly” manner because they have the power to heal the sick. “This belief is critical because understanding and trust are the core of a noble medical profes sion,” he said. “Plunge into medicine,” he said. “It deserves to be enjoyed because it is noble and one can contribute broadly to society.” Kathleen Ann Jones of Hous ton received the Helen Salyer Anderson Award, which is given to an outstanding senior with the highest academic achievement. The award was established in 1980 by physician Dr. Frank G. Anderson Jr. in honor of his mother, Helen Salyer Anderson. After the graduates were awarded their degrees, Dr. Daniel Blake Morehead, Class of ’94, told his classmates the rea son for becoming a physician was to help people. “Reflect on who we are and how we can help others,” he said. To conclude the commence ment, the 47 new physicians were administered their Hippo cratic oath by Dr. Charles J. Foulks, professor of internal medicine. ABU MINA, Egypt (AP) — The German archaeologist Peter Grossmann has spent 30 years trying to unravel the story of one of early Christianity’s great pilgrimage centers, Abu Mina, a city of miracles 1,400 years be fore France’s Lourdes. Early pilgrims came here to pray at the grave of Menas, a fourth-century Christian martyr beheaded by Egypt’s Roman oc cupiers. Said to be a place of miracles, the grave became the cornerstone of a vast religious complex, Egypt’s most ac claimed. Grossmann, of Cairo’s Ger man Archaeological Institute, has studied early Christian sites throughout the Middle East. Abu Mina is historically special for two reasons: —Few relics survive in Egypt from the fourth to the sixth cen turies, after Roman persecution ended and Christianity was le galized. —Unlike most early Christ ian monuments, altered repeat edly over the centuries, Abu Mina retains much of the feel ing of old. Cairo’s ancient churches, some said to have providei sanctuary for Mary, Joseph ani Jesus as they fled from Herod's wrath in Judea, have been re built so many times that noth ing exists of the original. What's seen today is medieval, not ear ly Christian. Some of Abu Mina’s remains survive amazingly intact, givitij archaeologists a chance to stud; in detail a period when drama; ic change swept the Meditei ranean. Abu Mina’s historical signif. cance was underscored in 1911 by UNESCO, the main U.N. oil tural agency, which placed tbs pilgrimage center on its work heritage list. Only five of Egy? t’s thousands of antiquity site share the distinction. Stew Milne/THE Battalion Jennifer Susan Johnson from Boerne graduated from the College of Medicine on Saturday. Johnson will start her residency in psychiatry at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science. Castration issue gets another look HOUSTON (AP) — A few Texas conservatives are quietly re viving the issue of castrating some violent criminals, three years after the issue caused an uproar in Houston. The subject stirred controversy in 1991 when State District Judge Michael McSpadden granted a black man’s request to be castrated in exchange for a probated prison sentence. The case sparked an outcry from some activists, and McSpad den withdrew his approval when a doctor could not be found to perform the procedure. Now, a few Texas conservatives are embracing a more tem perate approach. Led by Republican state Sen. Teel Bivins of Amarillo, they are pushing castration as optional therapy, not punishment, for imprisoned child molesters, The Houston Post reported Sunday. Texas prison officials currently refuse to permit surgical or chemical castration of inmates, but Bivins plans to introduce a bill in January that would let inmate child molesters volunteer to be surgically castrated at state expense. At last count, 7,856 men were serving time for sex crimes in Texas penitentiaries at a cost of more than $350,000 a day. Dr. Louis Girard, a Houston surgeon, noted that white sex of fenders outnumber blacks in the Texas prison system (42.1 per cent to 33.7 percent). The disparity is even greater among those who sexually abused children: 49.1 percent are white compared to 23.4 percent black. Amerasians face hardships of assimilation, bureaucracy HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (AP) — They were the lonely outcasts, children con sidered no better than dirt, the spoils of bat tle. Born of American fathers and Viet namese mothers, these Amerasians have now grown into young men and women, sur vivors older than the war that bred them. Many were exploited, sold from one Viet namese family to another, trapped by bu reaucratic red tape, victims of the political and economic wars between Vietnam and the United States that followed the end of the fighting in 1975. And indifference. The majority were in their teens or older when they finally realized their dream of go ing to the United States to get an education or perhaps meet their biological fathers. Most have not done well in America, nev er able to quite escape the discrimination that dogs them wherever they go. “I do think they have trouble fitting into either Vietnamese society or American soci ety,” says Tim McCully of InterAction, a Washington-based umbrella group for al most all refugee resettlement agencies in the United States. “They see themselves as straddling that line and I’m sure that ele ments of racism come in from both sides.” No one is sure how many Amerasians the war spawned. According to the latest figures from the U.S. State Department, about 20,000 Amerasians have gone to the United States since the war ended. Of that number, about three-fourths of them made it out of Vietnam in the past five years, after passage of the Amerasian Homecoming Act, and dur ing Vietnam’s emergence from isolation and its improved relations with the United States. No one is sure either how many remain in Vietnam. Estimates range from 1,000 to 5,000. While most agree that the vast major ity have already left, some will never leave. “It’s a pity they were left there in the first place to languish,” says Dewey Pendergass, an official in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau for Refugee Programs. “We can’t do anything about that now, but we’re trying to make things as right as we can.” The State Department has begun a new program to have the Amerasians apply di rectly to U.S. officials either in Ho Chi Minh City or in Bangkok, Thailand, for passage to the United States instead of going through the Vietnamese authorities. About 300 of the remaining Amerasians and their families live at the Amerasian Transit Center in Ho Chi Minh City, which plans to close in about a year. Others are thought to be scattered across Vietnam. Some of the American fathers accepted their children, even years after the war end ed and they finally caught up to each other. Some knew they had children in Vietnam, but abandoned them for the American fan lies they returned to back home. When son of the Amerasian children finally did make: to America on their own, they were rejecte again. Some of the fathers were married ant wanted to keep the secret from their wive; Others never knew for sure they had a chili because they left before the child was bon or the mother never told them. Sitting at the Amerasian Transit Cento in Ho Chi Minh City, Tran Viet Trucap’ pears shell-shocked, a pathetic young mar. He says his father was an American and his features seem to bear this out. A woman who says she is his grandmoth er is pleading his case. Vo Thi Nhat, 69, saps she has to sell vegetables and potatoes intis market to support him. Tran Viet True# stricken with high fever when he was 19 ani for a time it was thought he might never re cover. It left him tongue-tied. But he has slowly recovered, even enough to help bis grandmother in the fields. “Since early childhood, I raised him,” sajs the grandmother. “I cried days and nights Now I am very old. I have to go out in the field to search for wild seeds to plant in the rice fields. I’m too old to feed him now and just wish there was some way for him to f Please see Amerasians/Pagei CarePlus ^*rt •Physical exams to ensure your healthy start Provides "Prompt care for minor emergencies •Family health care & follow up Quality Care Plus Convenience Open till 8 p.m. Seven days a week Texas Ave. at Southwest Parkway 696-0683 No appointment needed • 10% A&M student discount CONTACT LENSES ONLY QUALITY NAME BRANDS (Bausch & Lomb, Ciba, Barnes-Hind-Hydrocurve) $11 Q00 1 X O TOTAL COST...includes EYE EXAM, FREE CARE KIT, AND TWO PAIR OF STANDARD FLEXIBLE WEAR SOFT CONTACT LENSES. SAME DAY DELIVERY ON MOST LENSES. Call 846-0377 for Appointment CHARLES C. SCHROEPPEL, O.D., PC. DOCTOR OF OPTOMETRY 505 University Dr. East, Suite 101 College Station, TX 77840 4 Blocks East of Texas Ave. & University Dr. Intersection t: The IAai i a[ ioinj MARK EVANS, Editor in chief WILlIAM HARRISON, Managing editor ANAS BEN-MUSA, Night News editor SUSAN OWEN, Night News editor MICHELE BRINKMANN, City editor JAY ROBBINS, Opinion editor STEWART MILNE, Photo editor MARK SMITH, Sports editor WILLIAM HARRISON, Agfiielife editor Staff Members City desk—James Bernsen, Amanda Fowle, Jan Higginbotham, Sara Israwi, Shelhe Jenkins, Christine Johnson, Monique Lunsford. Geneen Pipher and Nancy Treacy News desk— Andreana Coleman, Sterling Hayman, Kari Rose and Stacy S,union Photographers— Darrin Hill, J.D. Jacoby, Jennie Mayer and John Williams Aggielift Tra, Travis, Margaret Claughton, Christi Erwin, Jennifer Gossett, Jeremy Keddie, Warren Mayberry. Paul Neale and Larry Whitfill Sports writers— Josh Arterbury, Brian Coats and Constance Parten Opinion desk— Chris Cobb, Josef Elchanan, George Nasr, Jim PawlU jwski, Frank Stanford and Julia Stavenhap* n Graphic artist—Will Brooks Cartoonists— Boomer Cardinale, David Deen and Jos£ Luis de Juan Clerks— Jennifer Lambert and Elizabeth Preston Writing Coach— Timm Doolen The Battalion (USPS 045-360) is published daily, M' iday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and Monday through Thursday during the summer sessions (except University holidays and exam periods), at Texas A&M University. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77840. POSTMASTER: Send aouress changes to The Battalion, 230 Reed McDonald Building, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. News: The Battalion news department is managed by students at Texas A&M University in the Division of Student Publication, a unit of the Department of Journalism. Editorial offices are in 013 Reed McDonald Bui ding. Newsroom phone number is 845-3313. Fax: 845-2647. Advertising: Publication of advertising does not imply sponsorship or endorsement by The Battalion For campus, local and national display advertising, call 845-2696. For classified advertising, call 845-0569. Advertising offices are in 015 Reed McDonald and office hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Fax: 845-2678. Subscriptions: Mail subscriptions are $20 per semester, $40 per school year and $50 per full year. To charge by VISA or MasterCard, call 845-261 T. Monday Sp a i or CON PARI ■■■ Sport An spell i tertai old, 1 teasir smell; Foi be a i of th< able t Th arose vised pions’ Th ble re erage • ] take mer’t (may spelli • 1 to inc al spe • ( W< sport sion; spelli Imag nal r< petite Yc spell the i your ditor alidoi Yc over feign just t “C pleas “S “C tion? “T tious T1 the 3 clinc B« “She bigg' catfi: T1 did t sion anot is, E warn an ir D hair bees prov gran M nam time F: