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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 10, 1995)
X x A A Sc TVL XJ N R T Y Miller’s magic The theater arts program perforins Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Winning respect Close call Pawlikowski: Academic merit should determine The Aggie Football Team avoids an upset, defeating Rice 1 7-1 0. inninj iblicat > Ne» led oJ uctir take; 1 is to stniC' Vol. 102, No. 55 (12 pages) Established in 1893 Friday • November 10, 1995 Recent scams raise concerns among faculty, UPD □ UPD officers said faculty or staff members should contact the police immediately if they receive letters requesting credit card or bank account numbers. By Michelle Lyons The Bati align Texas A&M faculty and staff mem bers should be aware of a scam being run by unknown individuals world wide, University Police Department of ficials said. The con artists attempt to obtain per sonal information from faculty and staff members, such as bank account and credit card numbers. The scam is currently under investi gation by the United States Secret Ser vice and by university officials across the nation, including A&M. Bob Wiatt, UPD director, distrib uted a memo to A&M employees after an A&M professor recently reported receiving a letter postmarked from La gos, Nigeria. The sender identified himself as a representative from a Nigerian petrole um company who was interested in re cruiting partners for an enterprise sanc tioned by the Nigerian government. The victim of the scam was requested to provide the sender with his or her bank account number and in exchange, the sender would deposit a substantial amount of money to that account. The depositor would then be able to use the abcount, and for this service, the A&M employee would receive 10 percent of the money. Since distributing the memo, Wiatt said UPD has received sev eral more reports of similar activity. “Since that memo came out, we have received maybe a dozen other reports from faculty and staff,” Wiatt said. “There have been a number of reports of employees on campus who have said that they too have recently received let ters from Nigeria. " ... when you talk about con artist or confidence games, the victims are re luctant to come forward because they are embarrassed ... " — Lt. Burt Kretzschmar University Police Department “They are blanketing a lot of people across the nation.” Wiatt added that although the names and scenarios in the letters sometimes varied, the overall message was the same, and all the letters were postmarked from Nigeria. According to the Secret Service, after obtaining the person’s account number, the perpetrators “clean out” the ac counts, including credit card accounts and, in some cases, Teacher’s Retire ment System accounts. Lt. Burt Kretzschmar of UPD said it is possible that more people have been con tacted and are reluctant to step forward. “A lot of times when you talk about con artists or confidence games, the vic tims are very reluctant to come forward because they are embarrassed — embar rassed that they were taken advantage of,” Kretzschmar said. “Others receive See SCAMS, Page 12 MSC to add U.S., Texas flags to Flagroom on Veteran’s Day Organizations to honor veterans □ The four military service flags will be added during Military Weekend in the spring. By Lily Aguilar The Battalion The Memorial Student Cen ter is acknowledging the Uni versity and the armed forces on Veteran’s Day Saturday by dedicating the state and na tional flags to the MSC Fla groom at 11 a.m. The dedication will feature speaker Lt. Gen. James Hollingsworth, Class of ’40, who is the most highly decorat ed living Aggie officer. Hollingsworth will accept the flags on behalf of Texas A&M and the MSC. A ceremonial posting of the national colors by the Corps of Cadets and a reception in 292 Rudder Tower are included in the celebration. William Zarco, Texas A&M Veterans president and a senior business analysis major, said members of his organization discovered the MSC did not have the American flag or the state flag of Texas when they went to take their organiza tion’s picture earlier this year. “We were a newly formed or ganization, and we wanted to take our picture in front of the American flag,” Zarco said. “To our surprise, there was no U.S. or state flag. It was completely inci dental that we discovered this.” Zarco, who served in the Ma rine Corps for four years, said the MSC is supposed to honor all former students who have fought and fallen in American wars. He said the presence of the state and national flags reflects his See Flags, Page 1 2 As the nation honors its veterans, two Texas A&M student organizations are cooper ating to honor veterans Saturday at 11 am. The Texas A&M Corps of Cadets will place a commemorative wreath at the West Gate Memorial next to Albritton Tower. A bugler from the Aggie Band will play Taps during the ceremony. The West Gate Memorial is dedicated to the 55 Aggies who died in World War L Following the wreath-laying ceremony, the Texas A&M Veterans Association will dedicate two flags to the MSC. Both the United States flag and the Texas flag will be added to the MSC flagroom. Retired Lt. Gen. James F. Hollingsworth of San Antonio, a member of the Class of 1940, will speak. A reception will follow. The two ceremonies are open to the public. A&M to host Model U.N. Conference □ The political officer for the United Nations will speak at the MUN conference on campus to celebrate the U.N.'s 50th anniversary. By Tara Wilkinson The Battalion A United Nations officer is visit ing Texas A&M today, prepared to answer students’ questions about how the United Nations works and what it does. Dr. Jehangir Khan, political officer in the United Nations Secretariat De partment of Political Affairs, will speak at 6 p.m. in 601 Rudder Tower about “the past, present and future of the United Nations.” The Texas A&M Model Interna tional Organizations Committee, MSC Political Forum, MSC In ternational Programs Committee and the Jordan Institute are spon soring Kahn’s appearance in cele bration of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. Kahn’s appearance will also launch a Model United Nations Con ference at A&M this weekend. Hilary Holman, MSC Political Forum chairwoman and a senior political science major, said Khan’s speech will be interesting because though most people have heard of the United Nations, they do not have a comprehensive understand ing of how it operates. “They do more than just police the world,” Holman said. “There’s more to the United Nations than that, and a lot of people don’t realize it.” Holman said Kahn was given a broad speech topic so that he can tailor his presentation to the inter ests of the audience. The speech will be followed by a 20- to 30- minute question-and-answer ses sion. The whole presentation is ex pected to last 45 minutes. . Refik Sahin, Political Forum direc tor of programming and a freshman civil engineering major, said he ex pects Kahn to focus on the United Na'- tion’s accomplishments during the past 50 years. “I’m sure the topic will include some more contemporary issues too,” Sahin said. Students from colleges across Texas will be on campus to hear Kah n’s speech and to participate in the rest of the Model United Nations Conference. The conference will include discus sions on current events and global is sues, all conducted in the form of a mock U.N. meeting. Delegates, who choose which countries they will represent, See Conference, Page 12 Tim Moog, The Battalion Starting stack The redpots move the bottom of centerpole as it is lifted into place Thursday afternoon. The raising of centerpole is the beginning of the stack phase of Bonfire. Bonfire is sched uled to burn on Dec. 1. Experts to focus on effects of fascism on today’s society □ An A&M professor said fascism is making a comeback. By Courtney Walker The Battalion What some people thought disappeared with the end of Nazi Germany, is retuiming to the Western world in the form of racism, sexism and ultracon servative philosophies, a group of Texas A&M professors said. Experts from around the country, including several Texas A&M professors, will discuss the emergence of a new fascism in a series of lectures on “Fascism’s Return: Scandal, Revision and Ideology Since 1980” today and Saturday in 401 Rudder Tower. Annette Levy-Willard, se nior political writer for the Parisian newspaper Liberation and a documentary filmmaker for French national television and the British Broadcast Corp., will talk about her role as a reporter on European neo-Nazism. Levy-Willard will also show a film she made for the BBC called The Other Face of Terror which addresses neo-Nazism. The lectures will also fea ture academics from other uni versities such as Dartmouth College, Stanford University and the University of Califor nia at Los Angeles. Speakers will discuss the different perspectives of fas cism and how it is resurfacing into the Western World. Topics range from the Holocaust de nial and the New European Right to the Hitler Youth Generation. Larry J. Reynolds, director of the Interdisciplinary Group for Historical Literary Study, said people need to understand why fascism is returning in the West ern world and the effects of Euro pean fascism on America. “We need to know why skin heads are seen beating people who are foreign or different and a basic xenothabia or fear of the foreign is becoming prevalent,” Reynolds said. Although fascism is not an immediate problem in the United States and on American college campuses, A&M profes sors said the ideology behind it is intertwined in everyday is sues like racism and sexism. Arnold Krammer, an A&M history professor, said fascism is making a significant come back in the Ku Klux Klan, mili tias and survivalist groups. “We shouldn’t dismiss fascism just because it happens in Europe because it can be found in Ameri ca as well,” Krammer said. “What it all boils down to is a single leader telling a group of docile people what to do, and that can happen anywhere.” Even though fascist dictator ships ended in Europe 50 years ago, Krammer said, fascism continues to make its presence felt in intellectual controver sies, public scandals and cur rent political movements and ideologies. He used the example of ex posing an infection to sunlight to heal the wound. The infec tion is fascism, and the sun light is the public. “We are here to educate the public because the sooner people realize it is a growing problem, the sooner they can do something about it,” Krammer said. Richard J. Golsan, an A&M French professor, said the con centration of neofascism is in Europe, but some aspects of it can be found in our culture. “Fascists have an extreme focus of nationalism and do not take into account the differ ences in people and their cul tures, which is a problem al most everywhere,” Golsan said.