The Battalion
The Batt Online: http:// bat-web.tamu.edu
Friday, March 7, 1997
51
jirokastra
GREK
^ Styari
pring
By Joey Jeanette Schlueter
The Battalion
raveling is a popular idea for spring
ak, whether it is to a beautiful island, a
•capped mountain or even the couch,
itudents at Texas A&M have many choic-
deciding what to do over the break, and
leach seems to be a magnet to some,
itephanie Byzenski, manager for Desti-
ionTravel in Austin, said South Padre Is-
iis a popular destination.
South Padre Island gained fame for its
dyshores,” Byzenski said. "A lot of stu-
itslove to escape to the island, and
yusually come back sunburned with a
rgirlfriend.”
break
Spring breakers have crowded Aggieland
Travel, Inc. in College Station.
Marjejanacek, Aggieland Travel manag
er, said students have bought travel pack
ages to Cozumel and Cancun. Colorado is
popular with students too, she said.
“There are always some last minute
planners,” Janacek said. “Students should
plan their spring break trips as early as pos
sible, favorably in the fall.”
Janacek said those who plan early find
the best deals.
Eric Salinas, a freshman general studies
major, is traveling with a group of friends to
South Padre Island for the break.
“We are going to live it up and enjoy all
the craziness,” Salinas said.
inspires travel plans
Salinas said his group has been plan
ning the trip for about a month.
They rented a condominium — «
for the occasion.
Other students are at- ~
traded to higher altitudes.
The A&M Ski Club is
offering a ski trip to
Breckenridge, Colo.
Jackie Hinson, a mem
ber of the ski club and a
junior education major,
said there are 40 people go
ing on the trip. The trip will
cost $490 per person, including
transportation by bus and condo
minium lodging, she said.
Courtney Caswell, a senior interna
tional studies major, said she will
be skiing in Crested Butte
over the break. Her purpose
for going, she said, is to
keep in touch with grad
es uates in resort towns.
“I am going to sit in the
snow,” Caswell said.
“I also want to find
some free ski lessons from
a cute ski instructor.”
Airlines such as Conti
nental Express and Ameri
can Eagle have prepared for the
busy travel week, and are flying
students out of Easterwood Airport with
connecting flights to Houston and Dallas.
Chris Newman, customer service agent
for Continental Express, said this weekend’s
flights are full because of spring break.
"To make it [go] as smoothly as possi
ble,” Newman said, “flyers need to remem
ber to arrive early, bring identification and
check luggage in early.”
Newman said security procedures will
remain a priority.
While some students are hitting the slopes
and the beach, others plan to stay home.
Rea McQueen, a junior journalism ma
jor, said she plans to relax for the break.
“I plan to catch up on sleep, catch some
rays and find a job by the end of the week,”
McQueen said.
4]
Derek Demere, The Battalion
Heavy Metal
Adam Chavarria, a junior engineering technology major, uses a metal lathe
in an engineering technology class in Thompson Hall Thursday afternoon.
Opinions mixed on no-fault divorce laws
—
Texas lawmakers
are seeking restrictions
on requirements for
no-fault divorces.
DALLAS (AP) — When the 35-
12.00
ar-old nurse decided a broken
'se and jaw was enough, she left her
isband in the middle of the night,
! o young children and two garbage
igs of dothes in tow.
She sought a no-fault divorce,
ing irreconcilable differ-
ces,when he didn’t want to call
iff.
The Palestine woman sees pro
ved legislation to make it hard-
for a husband or wife to walk
f ay from a marriage against the
tier’s wishes as a “red flag to an
'sessive control freak if they
'H’t want to let their spouse go.”
Current law allows a divorce
jhonly one party’s consent after
50-day waiting period. Neither
Tty has to be found at fault for
e breakup.
Some Texas lawmakers are seek-
§to make the requirements for dis-
tving a marriage more restrictive.
“We believe that marriage is im-
| 'ftant enough to the state of
hs that if people are going to get
v orced and destroy families, they
ought to at least stand up and say
why,” said Rep. Arlene Wohlge
muth, R-Burleson, one of five au
thors of the proposal awaiting a
committee hearing.
“We have made it easier to break
the contract of marriage than to
break the lease on a rental car.”
Between 1970 and 1995, di
vorces in Texas peaked at 6.9 per
1,000 population, state figures
show. About 97,000 divorces were
granted in 1995, the last year for
which complete data was avail
able. That’s a rate of 5.2 per 1,000.
The proposed legislation would
require both parties’ consent for
divorce and, if they are not the par
ents of children younger than 18, a
one-year waiting period.
If the couple have children or only
one party consents, a divorce could
be granted only if one spouse proves
the other was at fault — such as be
ing absent, unfaithful, abusive or a
convicted felon.
“We are seeing all these problems
with juvenile crime, and a large per
centage of those cases are from di
vorced homes where there is no fa
ther,” Ms. Wohlgemuth said. “Fathers
are important people. Mothers are
important people. Let’s keep fathers
and mothers together.”
Advocates for victims of do
mestic violence are among those
who think reviving a fault require
ment after 27 years is a bad idea.
Karen Perkins, executive direc
tor of the Women’s Center of Tar
rant County, contends that be
cause many violent men are
stalkers, women and children may
be in greater danger if it takes
longer to get a divorce.
“We don’t need to throw up bar
riers in the path of mothers getting
away from a violent marriage,” Ms.
Perkins said.
University of Texas law profes
sor Sarah Buel, who teaches a
course on domestic violence and
the law, said she sympathizes with
the goal of lawmakers.
“I, too, want families to stay to
gether, but not if the price is con
tinuing to bury the number of vic
tims we are around this state and
around the country,” she said.
Many lawyers who specialize in
divorce are critical of the bill.
“I think it’s a giant step back
wards,” said Fort Worth attorney
Jim Loveless.
Noted Dallas family lawyer Louise
Raggio, who helped assemble the
Texas Family Code, said she fears that
a return to finding someone at fault is
“just a vehicle for fraud and lying.”
But she also advocates a one-
year waiting period in some cases
and favors sending parents to
seminars about how breakups af
fect children.
A&M scientists study
venom for cancer cure
By Benjamin Cheng
The Battalion
The venom of the diamondback
rattlesnake has been secured by
Texas A&M scientist Dr. Edgar Meyer
as an aid in finding a cure for cancer.
The biochemistry and biophysics
professor said the project began as a
long shot, and many of his early grant
proposals were rejected.
“No one was over-impressed,”
Meyer said.
He found an enzyme in rat
tlesnake venom, called collagenase,
that tenderizes the rattlesnake’s vic
tim to make it more digestible. An
enzyme in humans is used by tu
mor cells to tenderize the capillary
walls and help in the spread of can
cer cells.
Meyer said the enzymes must be
similar in structure because of their
similar functions.
Istvan Botos, a biochemistry
graduate student who worked on
the project for two years, said they
found the collaganese enzyme
structure in rattlesnakes is, in fact,
similar to the one in humans.
“It’s very unusual,” Botos said.
Meyer said his findings coincid
ed with the publication of articles
that found a collengase enzyme in
humans. Pharmaceutical firms are
working to find an inhibitor to pre
vent the enzyme from aiding in the
spread of cancer cells.
“It’s like placing a stick in the jaw
of an alligator,” Meyer said. “I think
in a few years there will be a cure
[for cancer].”
Dr. Ethel Tsutsui, a cancer spe
cialist, said removing tumor cells is
difficult because they spread.
“They can’t always tell where it is,
so they have to guess,” Tsutsui said.
Meyer hopes his research can
be used to find a drug to be used
as an alternative to current can
cer treatments.
“A lot of chemotherapy today is
brutal,” he said.
“People lose their hair and other
horrible things happen.”
Tsutsui said inhibitors are not al
ways 100 percent effective in pre
venting the spread of cancer.
“We still don’t really know what
causes it (cancer),” Tsutsui said.
Brewer & Shipley
'Hippie' folk duo visits B-CS
By Michael Schaub
The Battalion
Folk duo Brewer & Shipley will play at Dixie Theatre in downtown
Bryan tonight at 9 p.m.
Michael Brewer, half of the folk
duo Brewer & Shipley, knows how it
feels to be considered a relic.
“This young girl came up to me
one time,” Brewer said, “and told me,
‘You guys are the last of the hippies.
After you, there won’t be any more.’”
The singer/songwriter took
the comment as a backhanded
compliment.
“It made us feel like a couple of
California condors,” he said.
“We’re not the last of the hippies.
We never were hippies. We’re a
couple of musicians.”
Brewer & Shipley will play at
Dixie Theatre in downtown Bryan
tonight at 9 p.m.
The duo got its start in the late ’60s
when Brewer met Tom Shipley, a fel
low staff songwriter at A&M Records.
“We’ve never known what to call
our music,” Brewer said. “We’re an
acoustic duo, kind of the pioneers
of‘unplugged’ music.”
Although the duo has released
12 albums, it remains best known
for the 1970 top 10 single “One
Toke Over the Line.”
“We’ll go to our graves with that
song,” Brewer said. “It’s nice to have
a classic rock hit. It’s still being
played on classic rock stations.”
The folk anthem gained notori
ety among conservatives of the era
after it was discovered that “toke”
referred to smoking marijuana.
“That was just silly,” Brewer said.
“The government was threatening
the FCC, who threatened the radio
stations, for playing those bad,
drug-oriented lyrics. They were
coming down on Peter, Paul & Mary
for ‘Puff the Magic Dragon.’”
The song was written as a joke,
Brewer said.
The popular refrain of the single
— “One toke over the line, sweet Je
sus / One toke over the line” — led
some to believe the song had a reli
gious message.
“Some people still think that, and
we just cop to it,” Brewer said. “They’ll
say, ‘Hey, you guys recorded that gospel
song.’We tell them, ‘Yeah, that’s us.’”
The release of the single earned
Brewer & Shipley an unlikely enemy
and an unlikely fan.
“The vice president (Spiro Ag-
new) personally named us ‘subver
sives to American youth,”’ Brewer
said. “That was a great day when we
made the Nixon hate list.
“The irony is, at the exact same
time, Lawrence Welk performed it
as a gospel song on his show.”
The duo still plays “One Toke
over the Line” at its shows, as well as
older and more recent songs.
“We can’t not play “One Toke over
the Line,” Brewer said, “but we can’t
do all the old songs. We don’t want to
be referred to as an oldies group.
We’re still writing and recording.”
The band split up in 1979, but re
formed eight years later for a special
radio station event in Kansas City, Mo.
Brewer and Shipley’s latest album,
tentatively titled Straight from the
Heart, is slated for a summer release.
“It sounds like classic Brewer &
Shipley, but it’s actually pretty high-
tech and cutting-edge,” Brewer
said. “We recorded using comput
ers, overdubbed in pedal steel, fid
dle, mandolin.”
The new generations of fans at
Brewer & Shipley’s shows makes the
duo lose track of time, he said.
“We get second- and third-gen
eration people who tell us they grew
up with our music,” Brewer said.
“Time flies when you don’t know
what you’re doing.”
Fiscal study puts A&M's impact on
local economy at $633.2 million
The local economy has been impacted $633.2
million by Texas A&M University and other members
of the system, a recent fiscal study found. The find
ing represents the system’s largest economic im
pact to date.
The figure was the result of an in-house economic
study requested by A&M President Ray Bowen. The
1996 economic study shows an increase of $43 mil
lion over 1995, which can be contributed to increases
in several different areas.
The study found the 19,855 employees of the
Texas A&M System living in Bryan-College Station
and the surrounding area are earning combined
salaries of $420 million.
This is an increase of 650 employees and 35 mil
lion dollars respectively.
A&M’s 41,892 students contributed an addition
al $5 million to the local economy, and now have a
total impact of $173 million. Major student expen
ditures include food and housing, clothing, school
supplies and recreation.
Visitors to the Bryan College Station area make up
$29.3 million of the total, an increase of $2.8 million.
Bowen said in a press release the opening of the
George Bush Presidential Library later this year will
impact the number of visitors to the campus and sur
rounding community.
“We are proud that many of our activities and pro
grams contribute significantly to the economy of Bryan-
College Station and the surrounding region,” Bowen
said,“and we hope to make even greater contributions
this year and in the ones to follow.”