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June 12, 2001
Volume 107 ~ Issue 153
6 pages
News in Brief
|—Campus
pneral Wednesday
r senior who died
k'ercd overhead
rta del Sol, at
across the speal
iaid: “No toint;:|
to neoiibeJ| Houston flooding
. No to the . . r ,
te climne ” K^emor information and op-
f ,, i ' Hitions management major
<>t Bush repres,®^ Carren w y as ki||ed Sat ^ r .
e ? , ,? E ,T|at in the Houston floods.
Adolto JimeaBi-^g circumstances sur-
c ‘- oiinding Garren's death are
)t but condemn-.jol yet known by The Battalion
the Spanishtwhis parents, Joe and Cindy
i the UnitedStatiMrren of Weatherford, could
American troop lot be reached. Funeral servic-
:s, he added. So* will be held for Garren
cans are statit Wednesday at the the First
ases in Spain, Methodist Church in
h penalty is a'iip at ^ er d orc ^
ti-American se ■ State
in, followingidL
of a Spanish ci- Maintenance man
more than i | rus h e d by elevator
th row in their®
Ran ANTONIO (AP) — A
ou, Spain! Jc; l4-/ear-old maintenance
ez said ashear was killed Monday after
port. “Therea: \e was crushed by an elevator
can describe vc n an office building,
ran say is I’m >1; Police said James May went
Spanish rightr n to the elevator shaft to in-
a Florida jur ta ' ! some equipment and an
itted Martini 'levatoraccidentallydescend-
„io.„ d on top of him. He was
h' L * 1 rushed between the elevator
ngjuan(.arb nd the shaft the second
government. I |oor door |evel po|jce sajd
amards contn p 0 |j ce are investigating the
ulant’s legal tees. | eat |-, as an accident,
ally, demonstn: _
i Monday's sdOurney, Frampton
ation of Time :hange concert to
ronvictedinthi 5ene fj|. f or v i c ti ms
bombing, and:
new trial for Mu: HOUSTON (AP) — Tropical
the black U S it:orm Allison's torrential rains
enced to death ust were ver V inviting for
oumeyand Peter Frampton.
: :ihe artists, along with John
Vaife, postponed the Hous-
■ on date of their Arrival 2001
I our to Aug. 22 from June 1 0
L 1 J.1 t the C.W. Pavilion. The
*heduled concert will be a
enefit for flood victims.
| TI “Our hearts go out to the
l VJ CT-JLleople of Houston who have
»st their lives, loved ones and
I ^ property," Journey gui-
rrrist Neal Schon said.
^^^'^'■® , ' l pifhe first named storm of
le 2001 Atlantic hurricane
d liy flower boiupason hit Galveston and
from her classm iutheast Texas on June 5.
ervice, a hearseane!ground was soon saturat-
y casket droveoffi leaving water no place to
um Kyodo KT hut up as rain continued to
id the funeralsofs :>und . P art ^ of the cit y
tond were held in’ rou 9 h Sunday.
, The storm killed at least 1 7
a Sunday. ;ople and caused up to
prls and one bo\ : -qq m j||i on j n damage.
•e killed, and 13o. pj ooc |jng a lso prompted
and two tea- e Arena Theater in south-
Eightvictimsinittest Houston to reschedule
n serious conditionlesday's concert with come-
steady recovery, kan Dennis Miller to June 28.
Japan’s worst fit
ice a deadly nerves
Tokyo’s subways|
and the latestinal
al slashings inacoi
as strict gun lawsJj
d itself on a low cril
*eports said Takufflf|
th a history of niei
- launched his
hours before he v
igated about a fightj
hotel in Osaka, Japi
trgest city,
portedly had takenj
; daily dose of antii
i before the alleged]
estigators have seitf
a cutter knife andat|
veil as 300 unspeci
rom Takuma’s ho 1
id.
; said he also wast
ears ago on suspicio
tranquilizers into 1
ichers at the element
dicre he worked,
a reports said he*]
rged because he'
mentally unsta”
as sent to a hosp !
he was diagnosed
hrenic and event
l after treatment.
INSIDE
Aggielife
* l Pt i 4 »»*»k
If » tUlol »
t aklnij up a lot
of time, hfaltli>
edtilUj altemiltl* €■»
are available?
• l’tiv(iiiit| tile
limit«
tn>e* pfopoeetl
ijim \bovv bill in
f rifUjf on f ujhti
or will It help
* a w IK t-%
a:talion News Radio:
:57 p.m. KAMU 90.9
ww.thebatt.com
Snow cones
ANDY HANCOCK/The Battalion
Bryan Apperson, prepares a snow cone the lines are getting longer for
for a customer. As the temperatures rise, Apperson, who runs a snow cone stand.
— ■■ —— „ ■ ■ . .. -
McVeigh's
execution
carried out
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP)
— Stony-faced to the end, Tim
othy McVeigh was put to death
Monday without uttering a
word. More than 600 miles
away, those whose lives were
shattered by his bomb watched
the execution via a video camera,
finding neither the apology they
hoped to hear nor the suffering
some wanted to see.
McVeigh’s eyes rolled back, his
lips turned slightly blue and his
skin appeared jaundiced as he was
pronounced dead at 8:14 a.m.
EDT at the U.S. Penitentiary.
In his last moments, his face
was as blank as it was that April
day six years ago when America
first saw him escorted out of an
Oklahoma jail.
Instead of speaking, McVeigh
released a handwritten copy of
the 1875 poem “Invictus,”
which concludes with the lines:
“I am the master of my fate; I am
the captain of my soul.”
The 3 3-year-old decorated
Gulf War veteran was the first
inmate executed by the U.S.
government in 38 years. He was
convicted of the April 19, 1995,
bombing of the federal building
in Oklahoma City that killed
168 people, 19 of them children,
and injured hundreds.
To the nation, it was the worst
act of terrorism on U.S. soil.
To Timothy McVeigh, plant
ing a 7,000-pound truck bomb
at a building filled with inno
cent, people was a “legit tactic”
for his one-man war against the
government.
In Oklahoma City, 232 sur
vivors and victims’ relatives
watched the execution on a
closed-circuit TV broadcast,
sent in a feed encrypted to guard
against interception. McVeigh
appeared to be looking into a
small camera that had been in
stalled overhead in his death
chamber.
McVeigh “just gave us that
same glare that makes me think
he got what he wanted,” said
Karen Jones, whose 46-year-
old husband, Larry, was killed
in the Alfred P. Murrah Feder
al Building.
Kathleen Treanor, also at the
broadcast, carried a photo of her
4-year-old daughter, Ashley
Eckles, who died along with
Treanor’s in-laws.
“I thought of her every step of
die way,” she said of her litde girl.
“I needed to know in my
heart that I was done with this
man,” she added. ’’(But) I don’t
think anything can bring me any
peace.”
Frances Cummins, whose
husband, Richard, died in the
bombing, said McVeigh’s head
and shoulders took up the entire
screen and he “never took his
eyes off that camera.”
See McVeigh on Page 6.
Con artists targeting B
Stuart Hutson
The Battalion
It was a rainy Friday night when a
well-groomed man dressed in College
Station Medical Center hospital scrubs
knocked on my front door. The short,
African-American man wiped the rain
from his glasses as he hastily explained
that his wife was in a Houston hospital
about to give birth, and that he needed
20 or 30 dollars for gas so that he could
drive his van to be with her..
He explained that his ATM card was
not working and he was out of checks,
but if I was good enough to lend him
the money he would gladly pay it back
as soon as he arrived back in town.
To convince me, he produced a pic
ture of his wife, and that was where his
story fell apart.
The picture was of a white, dark
haired woman who, only a few weeks
prior, had asked me for money to get to
Houston to visit her husband who was
hurt in a car accident. She was clearly not
pregnant at the
time and he did
not appear to
be badly hurt.
Luckily, this
con artist had
come to the
wrong house,
and was sent on
his way without
so much as a
dime, but police
say that hundreds
of Bryan-College
Station residents
fall victim
to con
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artists every year.
body’s willingness to help,” said Dan
Jones, public information officer for the
College Station Police Department.
“These scams are popular in this area.
“Unfortunately,
they can take ad
vantage of one of
an Aggie’s best
qualities. A&M
students believe
that they should
help people who
I are in trouble.”
Jones said no
statistics are avail
able for these kind
of scams because
they can only be
prosecuted if the per
son can be proven to be
“For cons like that, t he lying and because people sel-
R U BENd!^Wa/T>« B/inai/ON
person is playing off some-
dom report them.
CS area
“Usually one of two things will hap
pen,” Jones said. “Either the person will
give them money and not suspect any
thing, or die person won’t give any mon
ey, so they don’t see the need to report it.”
Jones said anyone randomly ap
proached for money should be very sus
picious of the situation, and should di
rect the person to a local church or an
organization like Twin City Mission
which has procedures for aiding people
in need of temporary help.
“These places have specific mecha
nisms in place to take care of the types of
situations the people are claiming to be
experiencing,” he said. “The thing to
remember is to just be careful — you
never know when a person might decide
that their scam isn’t working and try to
just rob you.”
See Scams on Page 2.
A&M to help future
of cotton industry
Elizabeth Raines
The Battalion
Twenty years ago, Texas
A&M University revolution
ized the cotton industry with
Texas A&M agriculture engi
neering faculty member Lam
bert Wilkes’ invention of the
Cotton Modular builder.
Now with the help of an agri
culture equipment company,
Case IH, and its recent $35,000
donation, A&M will continue
to aid the evolution of the cot
ton industry.
Case IH’s donation is one of
many made in the past three
years to the Endowed Chair in
Cotton Engineering, Ginning
and Mechanization, part of
the Bright Matching Chair
Program.
“The Bright Matching Chair
was established by Texas A&M
President Dr. Ray Bowen as a
way to create matching pro
gram throughout the Universi
ty,” said J. Warren Evans, assis
tant to the vice chancellor for
resource development in the
Texas A&M College of Agricul
ture and Life Sciences. “Cur
rently, [the chair] is right at
about $700,000, $200,000 over
our initial [matching] goal.”
The chair began in the
Spring of 1998 with its first do
nation coming from the Texas
Cotton Ginning Association in
April of 1998. To help make the
$500,000 goal a reality, leaders
from all segments of the cotton
industry met in 1998 and
formed the Cotton Industry
Support Group which cam
paigned to endow the chair.
“The Texas Cotton Ginning
Association started [the chair]
out with $100,000 challenge to
the rest of the industry to raise
money,” said Ben Avant, execu
tive director of Texas Food and
Fiber and member of the chair
volunteer committee and Aggie
Class of’75. “Case IH’s signifi
cant contribution of $35,000
[helped to make the goal] of
$500,000 a reality.
Evans said that the entire
cotton industry has supported
the chair.
Later this fall an advisory
committee will be selected
from people throughout the
cotton industry. Once selected,
the committee will meet with
faculty from the department of
Agriculture Engineering to dis
cuss the needs of the industry
and choose someone to fill the
Chair, who can work to meet
those needs.
“Cotton is very important to
me both personally and profes
sionally,” Avant said.“ I think it
See Cotton on Page 2.
Researcher develops
terrorism
Justin Smith
The Battalion
Timothy McVeigh was put
to death Monday morning for
the bombing of the Alfred P.
Murrah building in Oklahoma
City on April 19, 1995. This
was an act of terrorism that if
foreseen by authorities may
not have taken the lives of 168
men, women and children.
Kathryn Lucchese, a cultur
al geographer who was recent
ly awarded her doctorate from
the College of Geosciences, has
devised a tool that might aid in
predicting terrorist activities.
Lucchese’s tool is called the
Terror Grid. The Terror Grid
is a “three dimensional matrix
based on site, situation and
time,” she said.
Each of these factors has two
parts. The two parts of “site”
are common place and cultur
al monument. If a common
predictor
place is attacked and people are
killed, people will be morally
outraged. If a cultural monu
ment is assaulted, but few peo
ple were harmed, then people
will feel a great cultural loss.
“Time” indicates whether
the area that was attacked was
crowded or if it was deserted.
Obviously, the more people
present at an attack site, the
higher the number of casual
ties and fatalities.
Finally, “situation” de
scribes the accessibility of the
area. If the site is very difficult
to approach, then the attacker
would be called “suicidal.” If
the area is wide open and easy
to reach, then the attack would
be described as “cowardly.”
Terrorism may be seen as a
form of communicating one’s
thoughts or beliefs. Jonathan
Smith from the Department of
See Terrorism on Page 2.