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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 8, 1997)
The Battalion )lume 103 • Issue 124 • 12 Pages The Batt Online: http:// bat-web.tamu.edu Tuesday, April 8, 1997 alogen lamp causes blaze Four apartment units were destroyed in yesterday's blaze ' ■ ^ ; . H Pat James, The Battalion ^College Station firefighter goes into a burning unit Travis House Apartments. By Joey Jeanette Schlueter The Battalion When James Westbrook came home from work yester day, he had to wade through water and ashes to get to his apartment, which was spared by the fire that engulfed 12 apartments in the Travis House apartment complex. At 10:18 a.m., the College Station Fire Department received a call to extinguish a fire at the complex on 505 Harvey Road. Four apartments were destroyed by the blaze, and eight others sustained smoke and wa ter damage. Westbrook, a junior management major, said he was shocked after coming home to the fire. “I feel angry it happened,” he said. “But there’s noth ing you can do about it.” The Travis House Apartments' fire is the second fire in the area this year. Kensington Place Apartments had a similar fire which resulted in the death of a Texas A&M student in January. Two residents were injured in the Travis House fire and taken to Columbia Medical Hospital. They were re leased with minor injuries related to smoke inhalation and minor burns. Fire Marshall Raymond Olsen said the fire was caused by a halogen lamp which fell onto a couch in apartment No. 97. “Halogen lamps get extremely hot,” Olsen said. “If you put a piece of paper near one, it will bum up immediately.” Black smoke and soot poured out of vents along the top of the apartment building from the back. In the apartment where dre fire began, the exterior kitchen wall is gone, and the stove and refrigerator are charred. Olsen said the apartments were equipped with smoke detectors which all functioned properly. David Anspach, head of maintenance for Travis House, said the fire spread quickly. “All I heard was a bunch of smoke alarms going off,” he said, “and then I saw the blaze.” Anspach said his first reaction was to get the people out of the burning building. “I had to kick in the door to see if anyone was inside one of the units,” he said. “One guy jumped off the back balcony, and the others were forced to go down a ladder. In five minutes the fire engulfed the apartments.” Jason Rolf, a freshman microbiology major, lives at the end of the building that caught fire. He said he was sleeping and was awakened around 10 a.m. “I woke up to someone yelling ‘fire,’” he said. The fire burned for approximately two hours. Resi- Pat James, The Battalion A College Station firefighter sprays water on yesterday's fire at Travis House Apartments on Harvey Road. dents of Travis House stood near the pool and watched as firefighters attempted to control the fire. Nicole Merritt, a resident of Kensington Place, said she could see the fire from her apartment. See Fire, Page 5 Teaching T(tier a nee peaker focuses jn stereotypes By Melissa Nunnery The Battalion “A battle is going on over whose merica this is,” Morris Dees, a known vil rights activist, said last night in tidder Theatre. Dees, founder of the Southern Pover ty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., ad dressed racial, social, economic and \ sexual stereotypes and divisions in his achingTolerance Program sponsored MSC Great Issues. About 400 people ended the event which was followed yaquestion-and-answer session. Rebecca Skomal, chair of the MSC teat Issues committee and a junior ge- etic biochemistry major, said she was kd to see so many different people at- tid the program. I “(When I heard about Dees] I eught ‘what an incredible program,’ ipecially in conjunction with Whoop- :ock because this is Unity Week,” komal said. “[It is] an incredible op- brtunity to hear someone like Morris fees, to hear the progress that’s been lade and the things that still need to I done.” Dees has won precedent-setting law suits against the Ku Klux Klan, skin heads and other racist groups. His life has been threatened and his offices have been burned by his opponents. He said the deepest divide in the United States today is along racial lines. The riots resulting from the Rodney King verdict will pale in comparison to the consequences of Americans not learning tolerance, he said. "As our country moves into the next millennium ... unless we learn to get along with each other, unless we learn to live together, those riots will look like a Sunday picnic,” he said. Dees told the audience that Ameri ca is great because of its diversity, not in spite of it. Americans of all backgrounds are an gry and frustrated with the division in the country, he said. “ [Whites say] the civil rights move ment is over and ‘they’ have had plenty of time to catch up,” Dees said. “What I have found out... is we have much more in common than separates us.” See Dees, Page 5 Pastor: Homosexuality is enetic, uncontrollable mv. Piazza equated homophobia to racism. By Beniamin Cheng The Battalion The homosexuality of God and the ight of gays and lesbians in society re discussed by Rev. Michael S. Pi- za at Friends Congregational urch yesterday as Gay Awareness feek continued. Piazza is the senior pastor at the ithedral of Hope Metropolitan Corn- Unity Church in Dallas, which is the rgest gay and lesbian church in the na- >n. He is the author of the book Holy omosexuals: The Truth About Being ty or Lesbian and Christian. Piazza said fundamental Christians quently misuse text in the Bible that indemns homosexuality. He said re arch has shown that homosexuality genetic. “We cannot control who we love,” Jsaid. Piazza said Jesus had both hetero- xual and homosexual feelings and at he struggled with ways to live th his sexuality. He said Christians Quid embrace God as both a man da woman. “Humans aren’t comfortable living ambiguity,” Piazza said. “We want gid roles.” Piazza said homophobia is compa re to racism in that people tend to eate an image of God in relation to the •Hge of the people in power. “Pat Robertson prays to a God that )0 ks amazingly like Pat,” he said. C ^ Tim Moog, The Battalion Rev. Michael S. Piazza speaks at the Friends Congregational Church in Col lege Station Monday night. Rev. Charles Stark, pastor of Friends Congregational Church, said sexual ori entation is not a choice and Jesus never condemned homosexuality. “God doesn’t close the door on the people he created,” Stark said. Phyllis Frederiksen, a member of the church, said homosexuality is not a sin. "We accept people the way they are,” she said, “the way God made them.” See Piazza, Page 5 Computer Wiz Rogge Heflin, The Battalion Greg Hubenak, a senior engineering technology major, updates software in the control computers in a College Station ALERT vehicle. Plains residents expect more flooding ► Crews continue to stack sandbags in the wake of spring blizzard. GRANITE FALLS, Minn. (AP) —Volunteers raced to stack more sandbags Monday, afraid that the meltdown from a spring blizzard could worsen what is already some of the most severe flooding on the northern Plains in years. Across the Plains, fields were sheets .of white stretching to the horizon after a storm over the weekend left more than 2 feet of snow in places. In northwestern Minnesota, along the Red River that forms the state line with North Dakota, bright sunshine melted a little snow, but the real thaw is ex pected Thursday or Friday, said Mark Seeley, climatologist with the University of Minnesota Ex tension Service. “Everything predicted for the Red is a flood of historic propor tions,” he said. The National Weather Service issued a flood warning extending for the next two weeks along parts of three rivers in other parts of Minnesota — the Minnesota, Mississippi and St. Croix. There is no quick way to gauge how bad the flooding might be come once the snow melts, but 4 to 5 inches of heavy, late-season snow could be equal to 1 inch of rain, Seeley said. In Granite Falls, wind-blown snow stung the faces of work ers stacking sandbags on the levees as they worked to pro tect about 40 homes along the Minnesota River. Flood victims and weary out- of-town volunteers trapped by the snowstorm stuck it out in a shel ter at a high school gym. Residents were told to drink bottled water after sewage backed up into the Granite Falls water supply. See Floods, Page 5 Flooding in the northern plains A weekend blizzard compounded weather woes in the Plains states. A look at flooding and blizzard conditions: NORTH DAKOTA ' ra ^ Missouri Red River of CANADA MM aetiiir River \ © Bismarck i JL / / 4 / Pierre SOUTH DAKOTA • Halstad « Fargo [jZ'JBS&lS Wahpeton [jOjfcfcJ! MINNESOTA ^ Montevideo Mankato mm NEBRASKA IOWA 50 miles 50 km Source: Accu-Weather AP/Wm. J. Gastello Drill instructor pleads guilty to sexual acts ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. (AP) — A former drill instructor pleaded guilty Monday to having sex with 11 trainees in violation of Army rules but denied charges he raped eight women under his command. Staff Sgt. Delmar Simpson, 32, said he had sex with subordi nates in his office, his home and at a hotel on another military base. In most cases, he said, the sex was initiated either by the woman or by both partners. “She would come to my of fice and we would engage in conversation and one thing would just lead to another, sir,” he told a military judge, de scribing one encounter. The 13-year enlisted man pleaded guilty to a total of 16 counts alleging he had sex or oth erwise engaged in improper con duct toward a subordinate at the Ordinance Center and School at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Each of the charges carries up to two years in prison and dis honorable discharge. He pleaded innocent to 21 counts of rape and to 57 other counts, including forcible sodomy, robbery and extortion. He could get life in prison if con victed of a single count of rape. His trial could begin this week. See Instructor, Page 5 The Battalion Insidetoday rolling, ROLLING: The A&M Women’s Tennis Team is on a Big 12 roll. Sports, Page 7 Aggie life Opinion Page3 Page11