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“Serving Texas A&M Since 1893 ”
The Battalion
blume 103 • Issue 109 • 10 Pages
The Batt Online: http:// bat-web.tamti.edu
Monday, March 17, 1997
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Students celebrate St. Patrick's Day
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Shamrocks and shenanigans —
day is green day.
Saint Patrick’s Day commemo-
tes the death of the saint fa-
ous for converting Ireland to
iristianity. St. Patrick died in
461 at the age of 76.
James O’Reilly, Irish historian
for the Ancient Order of the Hi
bernians, said the holiday offers a
little something for everyone.
“This day everyone becomes
Irish,” O’Reilly said. “And people
have a chance to learn more
about our history.”
Some may wonder what
shamrocks and pinching have to
do with St. Patrick’s Day.
O’Reilly said the explanations
are simple.
“The shamrock became linked
to the holiday because St. Patrick
used it to explain the Trinity to
the kings,” O’Reilly said.
“He used the three
leaves of the sham
rock to show the Fa
ther, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit.”
Four-leaf
clovers meant the
finder of the plant
would go to heaven
and join God.
Pinching started in
Ireland, O’Reilly said.
“Those who do not wear
green were considered unlucky, and
they were told they were being
pinched by the deceased
pagan spirits,” he said. “It
was scary for them.”
The history of St.
Patrick begins in
Scotland, when
he was captured
by an Irish band
of raiders as a teen
and put into slav
ery. He was then tak
en to Ireland to work.
While in his twenties,
Patrick, which means “no
ble,” was freed, and he studied to
become a bishop. He then set a
goal to rid Ireland of druid and
pagan worship.
Patrick became famous for
banning all snakes from the
Emerald Isle. The snakes were
considered evil.
Although St. Patrick’s fame is
celebrated, some think the holi
day is not appreciated.
Tonya Daughtery, an Irish de-
scendent and a sophomore ac
counting major at Blinn, said she
feels the holiday has lost meaning.
“People go and drink beer and
laugh and wear green, but they
don’t know why they are doing it,”
Daughtery said.
Ireland made the drinking of
ale famous on the holiday by cre
ating green beer.
Some local bars are prepared
for the holiday with green beer
and Bailey’s Irish Cream drinks.
Bennigan’s Irish American Pub
will be putting on the emerald
decor for the holiday.
Brandy Talasek, a hostess at
Bennigan’s and a freshman
agribusiness major, said they
will be serving green beer and
giving away prizes.
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Tim Moog, The Battalion
Dedicated Fan
Lindy Holder, a freshman biomedical science major, watches the Aggie baseball team play
Oklahoma State Sunday afternoon. For coverage of the game, see Page 7.
U.S.-Russian summit delayed
The meeting was postponed
one day to give President
Clinton more time to recover
; from surgery.
WASHINGTON (AP) — At the request of
hobbled President Clinton, Russia’s Boris
eltsin agreed Sunday to delay their sum-
lit meeting this week by one day to give
linton an extra day of recuperation from
is knee surgery.
Just a few weeks ago it was Boris Yeltsin
'ho many doubted was healthy enough to
leet with Clinton. Yeltsin was so weak-
ned by pneumonia in January, after heart
urgery last fall, that the summit was
hanged from Washington to Helsinki to
ccommodate him. Some thought the
looting would have to be pushed back un-
1 April or later, but Yeltsin’s recovery has
lince accelerated.
Thus it must have given Yeltsin some
uckish delight to tell Clinton in a get-well
ilegram he was ready to meet Clinton “as
ton as your health allows.”
The meetings will be Thursday and Friday
i Helsinki, Finland. Clinton is to leave
Washington Wednesday night.
Clinton’s state visit to Denmark, sched-
led for Friday, is being delayed until July,
linton told reporters he hopes to fit in the
•enmark visit while in Europe to attend a
IAT0 summit meeting. In Copenhagen,
rime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen is
sued a statement expressing “great under
standing” of the need to postpone.
I White House officials said Clinton was
going ahead with a planned presummit
meeting at the White House on Monday with
Russian Foreign MinisterYevgeny Primakov.
Primakov met with Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright Saturday and was at the
Pentagon Sunday to see Defense Secretary
William Cohen.
As he entered the Pentagon to meet with
Cohen and the military service chiefs, Pri
makov was overheard asking Cohen, “Do
you remember me?” Cohen replied, “Of
course I do,” and re
called that they had
traveled together to
Bangor, Maine. Sun
day’s meeting was their
first since Cohen be
came defense secretary.
In Moscow, the Krem
lin press service an
nounced the summit
was pushed back a day
“by mutual agreement”
and said the delay was
made necessary by Clinton’s recovery from
surgery to repair the tendon he tore Friday
in Florida.
Mike McCurry, the White House press
secretary, said the decision to delay the
summit’s start by 24 hours was made Sat
urday night by Erskine Bowles, the presi
dent’s chief of staff, and the National Se
curity Council staff.
“It gives the president an additional day
to convalesce and an additional day to learn
to be mobile,” McCurry said.
Asked whether the summit’s schedule of
meetings had been shortened, McCurry
made a veiled reference to earlier U.S. wor
ries over Yeltsin’s bout with pneumonia in
January and his slow recovery from heart
surgery last November.
“Remember,” McCurry told reporters,
“the schedule had been designed to accom
modate everyone’s health needs.”
Clinton will be on crutches for weeks as
he recuperates from Friday’s knee surgery. In
addition to the regular medical team that
normally travels with the president, an or
thopedist and a physical therapist will ac
company him to Helsinki.
Clinton returned to the White House from
Bethesda Naval Medical Center on Sunday
afternoon in a wheelchair. “I think I’ll be per
fectly mobile and perfectly fine,” a grinning
president told reporters as he arrived at the
White House.
Even before going into surgery, Clinton
vowed not to let his injury stop him from at
tending the Helsinki summit, where an un
usual mix of tough and sensitive topics will
be discussed, including NATO’s plans to ex
pand eastward.
Clinton considers NATO expansion his
top foreign policy priority — linked to other
festering security issues such as overcoming
the Russian parliament’s reluctance to rati
fy the START II nuclear weapons treaty.
Yeltsin said in an interview published
Sunday in Finland’s leading newspaper,
Helsingin Sanomat, that Finland should not
think of joining NATO. The Russians already
have made a fuss over NATO’s intention to
invite some former Soviet-bloc nations —
probably Poland, Hungary and the Czech
Republic — to join.
“To us, bringing the alliance’s military in
frastructure closer to Russian territory is ab
solutely unacceptable,” Yeltsin said in the
Finnish interview.
Clinton
Search continues
for alleged rapist
TV programs profile A&M graduate
By Benjamin Cheng
The Battalion
Alleged rapist and Texas A&M grad
uate Don Davis will be profiled on
NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries April 25.
Segments of the show were filmed
in Bryan-College Station during
spring break.
Davis was indicted on charges of ag
gravated sexual assault last March for
two rapes on the A&M campus in 1995.
Davis disappeared from his parents’
home in Houston five days before his
Aug. 21, 1996 trial.
John Delaney, 272nd district judge,
had released Davis on a $500,000 bond.
In September 1996, Davis’ parents
were arrested and charged with help
ing their son flee from authorities.
They were released on a $50,000 bond.
Davis’ case was profiled on FOX’s
America’s Most Wanted Jan. 25.
Bob Wiatt, director of the Universi
ty Police Department, said UPD re
ceived 39 leads from people calling in
to America’s Most Wanted. The Federal
Bureau of Investigation worked with
UPD on following up the leads.
Police in Arkansas found Davis’
abandoned car at a Little Rock hotel in
September 1996.
“We have no idea where he is now,”
Wiatt said.
Wiatt sedO America’s MostWanted has
Tim Moog, The Battalion
been effective in helping law enforce
ment officers apprehend fugitives.
“Even if you catch one of them,
that’s successful,” Wiatt said. “They’ve
caught a bunch.”
Michael Pallazo, the producer of
Davis’ segment in Unsolved Mysteries,
said the television program has helped
catch 40 percent of the fugitive cases it
has profiled.
“Thirty million people see our show
every week,” Pallazo said. “We’re like a
giant billboard.”
Unsolved Mysteries interviewed a
friend of Davis’ and the UPD detec
tives working on the case, Sgt. David
Villarreal and Sgt. Jim Lindholm. Pal
lazo said an interview with Davis’ par
ents could not be arranged.
He also said some people think
Davis is innocent of raping the two
women.
“It’s an interesting and fascinating sto
ry,” Pallazo said. “Some people think one
thing and others think another.”
Report says McVeigh
admitted to bombing
NEWYORK (AP) —Timothy McVeigh
admitted his involvement in the Okla
homa City bombing during a lie detector
test given by his lawyers, Newsweek re
ports in this week’s edition.
But McVeigh failed a question about
whether all his co-conspirators are
known to investigators, and that may
suggest that others were involved in the
bombing plot, the magazine said.
The report of the test is attributed
to anonymous sources close to the
investigation.
“McVeigh confirmed his role in blow
ing up the Murrah building,” the maga
zine said. “... There is even fresh confu
sion about whether the FBI has tracked
down all the members of the conspiracy.”
It said some federal investigators think
the lie detector story may be just a ploy by
McVeigh’s lawyer, Stephen Jones, to sow
confusion before the trial begins.
The defense did not respond to the
report of a lie detector test but said the
Newsweek report offers insight into the
prosecution’s case.
“This detailed outline of the pros
ecution’s theory offered to the press
far surpasses anything we have re- 1
ceived from the prosecution through
the legal process,” the defense said in #
a statement.
Newsweek reported on investigators’ !
probe into the blast, from how agents lo- i
cated McVeigh, collected evidence like 8
the axle from the truck used in the bomb
ing, and got witnesses to talk to them.
FBI spokesman Paul Bresson in Wash- j
ington declined to comment on the re
port Sunday.
Two other purported McVeigh con- |
fessions have upset defense attorneys. I
They contend the confessions reported j
by The Dallas Morning News and Play- I
boy magazine in the past two weeks |
have jeopardized the juiy pool.
Last week, they asked U.S. District
Judge Richard Matsch to throw the j
case out of court, delay McVeigh's
March 31 trial for a year, or move it
out of Colorado. There was no indica
tion when the judge would rule.
Jones said he was not optimistic the j
judge would grant any of his requests.
i
The Battalion
“-iiinriiir ■■ i i i
INSIDETODAY
CANGSTA S PARADISE:
Even Bryan-College
Station has “big city”
youth gang problems.
Aggielife, Page 3
Toons Page 5
Sports Page 7
Opinion Page 9
State lawmakers seek new ways to curb uninsured motorists
► One proposal calls for six
days of jail time for any
motorist caught more than
once without coverage.
DALLAS (AP) —You did not cause the ac
cident, but the driver of the battered pickup
that rammed into your new Lexus does not
have insurance.
Sorry. You pay.
Ron Vines, an Allstate insurance agent in
Plano, said an accident involving uninsured
drivers is the biggest headache in his business.
“You can almost feel your customers burn
ing up on the other end of the line when you
explain to them why we have to take money
out of their pocket,” he said.
Many legislators say the problem is get
ting out of hand, and they are searching for
ways to catch Texans who ignore the state
law that requires all drivers to have auto in
surance coverage.
More than a dozen bills to curb uninsured
motorists have been filed, including one that
would automatically jail for six days any driver
caught more than once without insurance.
“We need to solve this problem one way or
another,” said Rep. John Smithee, R-Amaril-
lo, chairman of the House Insurance Com
mittee. “When you have a law on the books
that is being ignored on such a wide basis,
that sets a bad precedent. Unfortunately,
there is not any solution that has jumped out
at us so far.”
Industry spokesman Jerry Johns said drivers
who comply with the law and carry coverage
are paying higher premiums every year be
cause of the large number of uninsured drivers.
“The cost for uninsured motorist cover
age has risen dramatically over the past five
years, and that can be directly attributed to
the number of people roaming around on
Texas roads without insurance,” said Johns,
president of Southwestern Insurance Infor
mation Service.
The situation is worst in Cameron County,
where 34.2 percent of the drivers are unin
sured, according to the Department of Public
Safety. El Paso County is next with 32.4 per
cent, then Dallas County, 22.6 percent.
The statewide average is 17.5 percent.
State law has required drivers to carry auto
insurance since 1982. The compulsory insur
ance law was beefed up in 1991 when the Leg
islature voted to require that motorists show
proof of insurance when obtaining a license
tag, auto inspection or a new driver’s license.
But in addition to those who never get in
surance at all, there are those who obtain in
surance but cancel it once they have gotten
the license or permit they needed.