1 SECTION • 12 PAGES
WEDNESDAYSEPTEMBER 26, 2001
Texas A&M University — Celebrating 125 Years
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Volume 108 • Issue 24
College Station, Texas
www.thebatt.com
NEWS IN BRIEF
Texas Task Force-1
will return from
New York today
Members of Texas Task
Force-1 (TX-TF1), the search
and rescue team coordinated
by the Texas A&M
Engineering Extension
Service, will return to College
Station today after being
deployed to New York to
assist in the rescue effort of
the Sept. 11 attacks.
The 72-member task force
will fly to Austin, where they
will be reunited with their
families. They will board
buses and travel to the
Brayton Fire School, where
they will be addressed by
A&M Chancellor Howard D.
Graves. Afterward, they will
go into a closed debriefing
session and be released
from active duty.
Navasota Police
Chief Lucas resigns
Navasota Police Chief Bill
Lucas delivered a letter of
resignation to the Navasota
City Council yesterday,
according to Navasota Mayor
Pat Gruner.
Gruner said the council
voted in open session to
accept Lucas' resignation on
Monday night.
Lucas was recently investi
gated for allegations of com
mitting racial discrimination.
He was cleared of wrongdo
ing earlier this month. Gruner
did not comment on whether
or not these allegations had
any bearing on his decision
to resign.
PUBLIC EYE
1F1I.
Loud party, noise
violations issued
by the party task
force last weekend
35
TODAY
E3H321
Page 3
Absence
makes the
heart grow
fonder?
Students find ways
to cope with
long-distance
Ags host
bears
No. 16 A&M squad
returns home
against Baylor
OPINION
Page 11
The media
war
Pro-Con: War tactics
WEATHER
today
HIGH
82° F
LOW
53° F
tomorrow
HIGH
85° F
LOW
56° F
FORECASTS COURTESY OF
www.weathermanted.com
Prof examines attack
By Jonathan Kolmetz
THE BATTALION
To make sense of the terrorist attacks
on New York and Washington, D.C.,
Americans must look into why it hap
pened, and examine the mind of the per-
petrators, said Dr. Anthony J. Black, pro
fessor of political science and policy at
the University of Dundee, Scotland.
Approximately 100 people attended a
forum Tuesday concerning modem Islamic
fundamentalism given by Black at the
George Bush Presidential Conference
Center. “[Black] was originally brought in
for a talk on his research in regard to
Islamic political thought for just a small
group of faculty and graduate students who
are interested in political theory” said Dr.
Cary Nederman, a political science profes
sor at Texas A&M. “Due to the recent
events in New York and Washington, D.C.,
I asked Dr. Black to talk to a larger group
of mainly undergraduates to help frame
what has gone on and to help inform them
on the topic of Islam.”
Black opened with an analysis on the
possible military action to be taken against
Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, an
Islamic-fundamentalist controlled country.
“People, and especially Americans,
want to make a rational strategic response
to the terror of two weeks ago,” Black
said. “To do this, one must first look into
the causes of why it happened, and
because this is a human action, we must
look into the minds of those that commit
ted these acts.”
One modem school of thought dis
cussed by BUick is the idea that Europe
and America are now the leaders in con
stitutional government, rule of law and
respect of property. Many believe that
See BLACK on page 6. guy Rogers
Dr. Anthony
J. Black, a
professor at
the University
of Dundee,
Scotland,
spoke to
about 100
people yes
terday con
cerning
Islamic fun-
the battalion damentalism.
Compaq
merger
affects
B-CS area
By Sommer Bunce
THE BATTALION
When Compaq and Hewlett
Packard (HP) merge in six to eight
months, 10 percent of the resulting
company’s work force — 15,000
jobs — could be cut, Compaq offi
cials said.
Though the company is global.
Bryan-College Station’s small
technology community could feel
some effects, said Bryan Compaq
Development Center’s Peggy
Cruse.
In the $25 billion merger
announced earlier this month, the
new company, presently called
“the new HP,” will have operations
in 160 countries and almost
150,000 employees. The Compaq
name will be absorbed by HP, anci
the new HP’s products will be cre
ated through a combined labor
force of both companies, said
Compaq Corporation spokesman
Arch Currid.
Both companies will continue
to operate independently until the
federal government approves the
merger, a move expected in the
first half of 2002. For now, Currid
said, the companies are “business
as usual.”
"We still compete in the mar
ketplace and our separate sales
departments still have quotas to
meet,” Currid said.
The Compaq Development
Center at Texas A&M, located in
Bryan, houses nine full-time
employees and 58 year-round stu
dent interns. The Center serves as
a subcontractor for Houston-
based Compaq Corp, said Cruse,
the Bryan Center’s staffing and
operations planning administra
tor. Compaq out-sources testing
and programming to the Center,
Cruse said.
“We retain most of our students
— 77 percent,” she said. “I market
them out to positions within
Compaq [when they graduate].”
Gared Chastain, a junior com
puter science major, has been
interning with Compaq since
May. He said the status of his job
after the merger has not been dis
cussed, but he said that he is not
worried about it.
“You never really know where
you stand in the job market. But
See Compaq on page 2.
Competitive climbing
GUY ROGERS • THE BATTALION
Paul Mccluskey, a senior computer engineering major, climbs one of 15 problems as a competitor at
the Late Night Rec Rock Show Tuesday evening at the Texas A&M Recreation Center.
Meningitis vaccines offered
UNT student
hospitalized, 80
people treated
DENTON (AP) — The
University of North Texas is
offering vaccinations on campus
after a student was hospitalized
with an infectious strain of bac
terial meningitis.
The 19-year-old woman
remained in critical condition
Tuesday at a Dallas hospital,
three days after being trans
ferred there from a Denton
hospital.
School officials are trying to
contact students in her classes
and the 350 students at a soror
ity event that she attended
Friday.
The disease is spread by
direct contact with infected indi
viduals or through coughing or
sneezing. Health officials say
the incubation time for the dis
ease is usually three to five days
but may be as long as 14 days.
About 80 people who heard
about the woman’s illness
have been treated with antibi
otics at Denton Regional
Medical Center since
Saturday, said Tricia Scott,
hospital spokeswoman.
UNT has scheduled a vacci
nation session from 1 to 7 p.m.
Thursday in the coliseum. The
cost is $90, and financial help is
available. The vaccination is not
a treatment for the disease but
provides protection for up to
five years.
Report: Transplanted ovaries functional
CHICAGO (AP) — Sections of ovaries
taken from two patients were implanted in
their arms and continued to function there,
raising hopes women can avoid the loss of
fertility that often accompanies treatments
for cancer and other diseases.
In both cases, the tissue produced clear
ly visible well-sized bumps — mini
ovaries, really — on the forearm, just
below the elbow. But more important, the
tissue appears to be functioning normally
and has produced mature eggs and regu
lates the menstrual cycle. That offers hope
that the women, both in their 30s, could
become pregnant.
“It’s very promising,” said Dr. Kutluk
Oktay, a Cornell University reproductive
endocrinologist who performed the trans
plants at New York Methodist Hospital.
Oktay and colleagues describe the proce
dure in a report in Wednesday’s Journal of
the American Medical Association (JAMA).
See Ovaries on page 2.
Saudi
Arabia
cuts off
Taliban
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
(AP) — All but sealing
Afghanistan’s isolation, Saudi
Arabia formally severed rela
tions with the hard-line Taliban
government on Tuesday. Stung,
the Taliban denounced the Saudi
move as intolerable to all
Muslims and accused it of siding
with “the infidel forces.”
Fierce fighting was reported
in northern Afghanistan, where
an opposition alliance is trying
to wrest strategic territory from
Taliban fighters. Reports were
sketchy, and the two sides made
conflicting claims that could not
be reconciled.
From the organization of
Osama bin Laden, the accused
terrorist mastermind at the heart
of the hardening confrontation
between Afghanistan and a U.S.-
led coalition, came a volley of
new threats. “Wherever there
are Americans and Jews, they
will be targeted,” said a state
ment issued in the name of
Naseer Ahmed Mujahed, mili
tary chief for bin Laden’s al-
Qaida network.
“The holy warriors are fully
prepared,” added the statement.
See Taliban on page 2.
Last piece of
wreckage will
be removed
NEW YORK (AP) — The
last standing piece of the World
Trade Center towers — a seven-
story twisted metal ruin that has
come to symbolize the terrorist
attacks — will be carefully
removed and saved for possible
use in a memorial.
“We’re going to preserve as
much of that wall as possible,”
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said
Tuesday.
The remnants of the south
tower — the one struck by the
second jetliner and the first to
collapse — have been captured
in scores of photos of ground
zero since the Sept. 11 attack on
the twin 110-story towers.
Demolition began late
Tuesday. Removal of the tower
will also make cleanup efforts
safer and easier, the mayor said.
Earlier, as New Yorkers voted
in primaries for his replacement,
Giuliani encouraged residents to
move beyond the World Trade
Center terrorist attacks and get
on with life.
The mayor cited statistics
showing that violent crime has
plunged in the two weeks since
the terrorist attack. New York is
now the safest large city
America, the mayor said.
in