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The Battalion
osby straddles
ijiorse to Garden
NEW YORK (AP) — If it takes
aractice to get to Carnegie Hall,
ow do you get to Madison
uare Gar-
thes 1
i cos 3l
offenders in
sday, 128
in another pa-
125 committejn
according
the Texas
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fen? Horse
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I Cosby.
Cosby was
perfect
aomedic if not
De equestrian
[ orm as he
ntered the
rena at the Cosby
E National
lorse Show for a salute to retir-
ig racing great Cigar.
With a dour, immobile ex
pression and his hands at his
sides, Cosby bobbed along Sat
urday as he was led into the
ring aboard his straight man —
a very patient horse. He man
aged a couple of brief waves to
e crowd before the horse am-
aled to a stop.
With the crowd egging him on,
losby slowly leaned forward and
painstakingly raised his leg over
the horse's back to dismount.
“That was the longest moment
of my life," Cosby said when he fi
nally reached the ground.
Then, like a trouper, he intro
duced his co-star: “My horse —
Jello Pudding.”
Seinfeld co-star
1 inds key to humor
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jerry
Stiller doesn’t need skills —just
ring a bell, sit back and wait for
his comedic genius to emerge.
Stiller, who plays the hot-tem
pered, bellowing Frank Costanza
on NBC’s Seinfeld,' says he never
knows what to expect from the
show’s writers.
“I felt like Pavlov’s dog every
time I get a call from them," the
69-year-old actor said.
“I find out another part of the
character five minutes before I
go on the set” — idiosyncrasies
ike Costanza’s foot odor, obses
sion with TV Guide and ability to
speak fluent Korean.
Before the hit series, Stiller
old hot dogs in New York City
nd made 36 appearances on
he Ed Sullivan Show with his
eara. He
Iso acted on Broadway.
never learned anything else,
my skills, like typing,” he said. “I
stupidity, or call it my dogged-
ss, that I learned one skill and
tie things broke here and there.”
ateman blames
ulimia on fame
NEW YORK (AP) — Justine
ateman says teen-age fame
lade her become a bulimic.
The former Family Ties star
aid she made a lot of rules
)r herself.
“I can have one more cookie
ater,” she said in the Nov. 9 edi-
ion of TV Guide. “I’m talking
ainly about doing stuff like not
ating when I’m hungry. Or eat-
ng more than I really want to
nd then trying to get rid of it.”
Bateman said she was sure
ceople knew. "In fact, when
Jiey’d say, ‘You look anorexic,’
’d take it as a compliment.”
The 30-year-old actress, now
3 years to Starring on NBC’s Men Behaving
who died in 3ad/y, said she hit bottom three
their two /ears ago and sought help in a
Sheridan, a 12-step program.
“One day the light went on,
County, and . /ou ^ now -p'- she sgjcp
uate student : s
>oap star runs
xas L.B.J.
s in Austin.
ctively
of his com-
or another Emmy
YORK (AP) — Forget
d with young; about pulling a Candice Bergen
^ue Coach .and bowing out of the next Day-
n Assistant | time Emmy race — Erika Slezak
rved as
beck Lions
r of both the
Chambers of
so a trustee
hool Board
Ruling Bidet
cher at the
ch of Mexia.
says if nominated, she WILL run.
“I think Candy was wrong," the
five-time Emmy-winning soap star
said in Sunday’s Parade magazine.
That’s not the way this country is
run. If you have one Pulitzer Prize,
you deserve to try to achieve an
other. The way we recognize good
ork is giving out awards.”
iress award for ABC’s One Life to
16-time nominee Susan Lucci.
Page 3
Monday • November 4, 1996
Absolute Image Problem
There ore many
traditions at Texas
A&M, and drinking
heavily may be one
of them. Statistics
leave the supposed
image of a drunken
Aggie in question.
I
By Kimber Huff and
John LeBas
The Battalion
Mi
A
any colleges
have a reputa
tion for heavy
alcohol consumption,
but Texas A&M seems to
top the list.
Rumors about drinking
at A&M circulate: Harvey
Road has the most DW1 ar
rests for that stretch of road in
the county, possibly the state;
Hurricane Harry’s is one of the top
90 alcohol sellers in Texas; more al
cohol is consumed per square foot at
the Dixie Chicken than at any other place
in the country.
Many people accept the rumors as fact,
even if they may not be.
But does A&M deserve its image? Do stu
dents here really drink more than those at
other universities?
Surveys and statistics on student drinking
at A&M indicate yes.
Designate a Bus Transit, designed to de
crease drunken driving in Bryan and College
Station, was hailed at its start earlier this se
mester as an innovative step toward solving
this problem.
This alternative to driving while drunk
would seemingly appeal to droves of party
going Aggies, but it has not. Students have
not stopped drinking and driving.
A 1994 survey by the Harvard School of
Public Health*, which compared drinking
statistics for 46 public colleges with more
than 10,000 students, indicated that Aggies
may drink and drive drunk more than oth
er students.
Almost 42 percent of Aggies drive after
drinking, compared with 30 percent of stu
dents at other large public colleges.
The survey found that almost twice as
many Aggies also drive after having more
than five drinks.
Designating a driver is also less popular at
A&M — almost 30 percent of Aggies have
ridden with a driver they knew was drunk or
high. Twenty-two percent of other students
do the same.
One rumor that would seem to support
these findings is that Harvey Road has the
highest DWI rate in Texas. But Lt. Scott Mc
Collum, commander of information services
for the College Station Police Department,
said he doesn’t believe this rumor is true.
“I’ve heard the rumor, but I’ve not seen
any hard facts or statistics that would sup
port it,” McCollum said. “When you com
pare it to cities like Houston, Dallas, Austin
and the like, if it turned out to be true I’d find
it highly unusual.”
McCollum said DWI rates in those cities
would probably be higher because they have
more people and bars.
“I know that places in Dallas and Houston
have areas with more bars than Harvey
Road,” he said.
But Matthew Kenyon, executive director
of DAB, said he believes at least one in six
Bryan-College Station drivers are drunk at
night. One in three, he said, have had some
thing to sip on.
Although Kenyon does not know of any
statistics to back up these figures, he said he
believes there is some truth in them.
“I challenge everyone to go out at about 1
a.m., Thursday through
Sunday,” Kenyon said.
“Almost every fourth car
you’ll see swerving.”
Kenyon said drinking
and driving is a bigger
problem at A&M than at
most other colleges.
“I think that every
school is a party school,”
Kenyon said, “but I think the
driving after drinking is much
larger here.”
The Harvard survey also indi
cates that Aggies appear to drink
more often than their peers. Although
the survey shows about 40 percent of all
students at large colleges drink to get
drunk, A&M students tend to binge more
three times in the past two
cent higher than students
Even when not getting drunk,.
other schools in drinking. Twenty-three per
cent of A&M students probably drank at
least 10 times in the past month, compared
with 20 percent of students at other college
This drinking can result in negative con
sequences. More than 35 percent of Aggies
drank so much they forgot where they were
and what they did, compared to 27 percent
at other colleges. Almost 30 percent of Ag
gies said drinking caused them to engage
in unplanned sex. Nationwide, the average
was 20 percent.
Of those who had sex, over 13 percent did
not use protection because they were dr
Nearly one out of four Aggies said drinkii
caused them to get behind in school work,
and more than 6 percent said drinking
caused them to get into trouble with local or
campus police.
But the consequences of drinking reach
past the Aggies who choose to get drunk.
Almost 60 percent of Aggies questionec
said they had to "babysit” a drunken stu
dent. Half of the students at other colleges
had to take care of drunken friends. And
while the rate of unwanted sexual advance
due to drunkenness is about the same
one-fourth of students here and at other col
leges —- less than 1 percent of Aggie women
reported being sexually assaulted or raped
because of alcohol. Almost 2 percent of
women at other colleges said they had been
victims of sexual assault.
Sherry Hostetter, assistant director of the
Brazos County Rape Crisis Center, said she
believes most date rapes involving alcohol
are not reported. She said the Rape Crisis
Center sees alcohol involved in such cases
“more often than not.”
“We see alcohol involved in about 90 per
cent of date and acquaintance rapes here,”
Hostetter said.
She said according to the Uniform
Crime Reports Division of the U.S. Depart
ment of Justice, about 75 percent of date
and acquaintance rapes in the nation in
volve alcohol.
Beyond the problems that alcohol caus
es, the question remains: Are Aggies a
bunch of drunks? Not according to them.
Of those surveyed, 0.0 percent admitted to
being a problem drinker. However, almost
16 percent said they had had a drinking
problem at some time.
*All statistics in this story come from the
1994 Harvard School of Public Health survey.