EDNESDAYSEPTEMBER 19, 2001
Texas A&M University — Celebrating 125 Years
2 SECTIONS • 14 PAGES
ay
OPTICAL
NEWS IN BRIEF
yf j] |Baylor athlete
! (arrested, cut from
on glasses! ibaseball team
^wACO (AP) — Baylor junior
pitcher Derek Brehm, who
was accused earlier this year
1 1 of killing, skinning and decap-
^■ing a stray cat, has been
dismissed from the team fol
low nig a DWI arrest.
Hi a release from the
Hiool, Baylor coach Steve
Hith said only that Brehm
Hd been dismissed after
Hng involved in another off-
^H-field incident.
^■Vaco police said Brehm
was arrested Saturday.
Hlrehm is scheduled to
appear in court Nov. 7.
Brehm and outfielder Clint
Bowers were arrested March
9|after the cat was killed.
Both players were scheduled
to appear in court on the
plea docket Aug. 30, but the
dale was rescheduled for
pretrial Jan. 9.
Waco police arrested the two
players after receiving a report
that someone shot a cat near
the Baylor campus and fled in
a sport utility vehicle.
- Police stopped Bowers’
Chevrolet Tahoe nearby and
noticed blood on the door
and steering wheel, accord
ing to police reports. While
searching the truck, police
found a severed, skinned
cat’s head in the back.
. They also found a pellet
gun, a knife and a golf club
that appeared to have cat
hair on it.
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PUBLIC EYE
(EACH
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Ashbangers)
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L-1103
jests only,
pon @ I “ visit
Aggie Bucks.
V02/0I
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If.y.i.;
Texas population
for 2000
according to the
state comptroller
20,851,820
msm
Page 3A
Studying
abroad
* Students get
opportunities to learn
from studies and
cultures
Page 5A
receive
st *14.75.
Big 12
reschedules
eight games,
set to open
conference play
OPINION
Page 5B
The Bevo
Battle
Fort Worth’s Molly is
no threat to Bevo
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FORECASTS COURTESY OF
www.weathermanted.com
SERVING THE TEXAS A&M COMMUNITY SINCE 1893
Volume 108 • Issue 19
College Station, Texas
www.thebatt.com
Aggie network
An Exxon-Mobil recruiter admires senior computer engineering major
Kenny Harms' Aggie ring at the Engineering Career Fair yesterday. The
BRETT MARETH • THE BATTALION
career fair was held in Reed Arena and offered corporate booths for
students seeking jobs in engineering.
Bureau
warns of
Campaign to raise $50 million,
improve existing sports facilities
By' NONI SRIDHARA
THE BATTALION
As students head to the Oklahoma
State game this Saturday wearing red,
white and blue, many will be entering
through the newest addition to Kyle
Field, the Bernard C. Richardson Zone.
The addition is part of the
Championship Vision, an athletic capital
campaign that seeks to raise $50 million
to build several new facilities, including
an academic center, and make improve
ments to existing sports facilities.
“The campaign is funded strictly from
alumni and private donations,” said Miles
Marks, executive director and CEO of
the 12th Man Foundation.
Marks said the first $6 million will be
going toward building training room
facilities and locker rooms for women’s
softball, soccer and track and field teams.
“Our first priority was to give to
sports that do not generate any revenue
other than their own ticket sales,”
Marks said.
Marks said the major objective of the
campaign is to build an academic complex
behind the south end zone of Kyle Field.
Three million dollars will be allotted for
the academic center, $500,000 for a career
counseling center and placement center
and $125,000 for computer labs that will
be housed in the academic center.
“Because athletes have such a tight
schedule and set practice times, they
don’t have the flexibility in their sched
ule like other students to go to the com
puter labs when they are not as packed,”
Marks said.
He said the career center was to get
the athletes ready for life after college.
“Most of these athletes are not going
to go on to be professionals, so we need
to get them prepared for the real world,”
Marks said.
Marks said very few of the donors
are former athletes. He said if someone
does plan to put their whole donation
into the campaign, they are encouraged
to do otherwise.
“Athletics is a very valuable auxiliary
effort,” Marks said. “It is the front porch
to the University. You can have a promi
nent speaker for the business school or
the engineering school come on a week
end, but you’re not going to get anywhere
near the attendance if you hosted this on
a game-day weekend.”
See Vision on page 7A.
COURTESY OF THE 12TH MAN FOUNDATION
Perry combats
price increases
By Eric Ambroso
THE BATTALION
The Brazos County Better
Business Bureau is receiving
reports of price gouging in the
aftermath of the terrorist attacks
in New York City and
Washington, D.C.
Larry Lightfoot, president of
the Better Business Bureau,
defines price gouging as sudden,
unusual price increases that are
significantly out of line with the
competition in the geographic
area. The disruption in the air
line industry is forcing many
Americans to find alternate
means of transportation, shelter
and other related services,
impacting industries across the
country. If retailers determine
there might be a public concern
about a product, they may try to
take advantage of consumers by
unfairly increasing the price of
the product, Lightfoot said.
“Attacks on the East Coast
have created fear in all con
sumers nationwide. People are
overreacting to the attacks and
retailers are taking advantage of
this hysteria,” said Mike Viesca,
spokesman for the Texas attor
ney general’s office. “Ninety-
five percent of the complaints in
Texas have been concerned with
gasoline. Other products have
included rental cars, groceries
and hotels.”
Texans should be aware of
retail gasoline stations, motels,
hotels and other businesses
across the state that provide
transportation services, shelter
and related necessities, Viesca
said. However, he said, not all
increases in prices constitute
price gouging. Prices on prod
ucts such as gasoline and pro
duce vary throughout the year.
Viesca is urging people to
use common sense to deter
mine when prices are unreason
able and report the instance as
soon as possible. According to
Viesca, if a consumer buys a
product at a certain location for
an extended period of time, and
the price suddenly increases or
if the competitors’ prices are
significantly lower, the con
sumer should contact the state
attorney general’s office.
“The vast majority of busi
nesses adhere to honorable,
responsible business practices in
See PRICES on page 2A.
Police link suspect to
assaults in Philadelphia
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — Police have linked a suspect in
sexual assaults near the Colorado State University campus to five
rapes and a murder in Philadelphia, police said.
DNA left at the scene of two rapes in Fort Collins matched that
of a man suspected of assaulting three female college students in
Philadelphia and killing a University of Pennsylvania student
between 1997 and 1999.
“This is the same person,” said Fort Collins spokeswoman
Rita Davis.
All six attacks in Fort Collins since May targeted women in
their 20s. In each case, the intruder climbed through a window or
balcony doors during the early morning hours, blindfolded the
women and forced them to perform a sex act.
“He’s certainly a shrewd individual because he’s able to do this
as long as he has and get away.” said Philadelphia Police CpI. Jim
Pauley. “He’s not a dummy.”
Fort Collins police have received 848 tips and interviewed
almost 200 suspects. The main suspect’s car has been described as
a faded-blue, late 1980s, four-door sedan.
Baylor professor refutes
much of Darwin’s theory
By Eric Ambroso
THE BATTALION
The complexity of life on Earth points to the
existence of a “creator” and refutes much of
Darwin’s theory of evolution, said William
Dembski, a Baylor University professor who
spoke Tuesday at Rudder Theater.
Dembski is the nation’s leading proponent of the
“intelligent design” theory, which uses mathemat
ics and philosophy to prove that biological devel
opment is not a random product of evolution, but
the intended result of an intelligent designer. Titled
“Darwin’s Unpaid Debt,” Dembski’s lecture was
hosted by the Christian Faculty Network at A&M.
“Natural selection and random variation are
in principle incapable of accounting for certain
types of biological information,” Dembski said.
“The issue at hand is what is responsible for evo
lution. The transition requires intelligence and
cannot happen by random, natural forces. The
notion of specified complexity is correlated with
the effects of intelligence. A designer and speci
fied complexity need to be brought together in
order to explain biology.”
The Darwinian theory of evolution is the belief
that organisms have evolved over time to repro
duce. It claims that organisms evolve to adopt
certain characteristics in order to survive.
Dembski argues that Darwin’s theory cannot
account for more interesting, complex organisms.
According to Dembski, specified complexity is
needed in order to explain biological systems.
Specified complexity is the idea that organ
isms have a certain biological blueprint. He said
that there are extremely complex organisms in
life that require several closely matched parts in
order to function. Therefore, removal of one of
these parts would cause the organism to stop
functioning. Evolution, in these cases, cannot
explain the complexity of certain organisms.
See Dembski on page 2A.