EDNESDAYNOVEMBER 14, 2001
Texas A&M University
1 SECTION • 12 PAGES
Celebrating 125 Years
FULL set
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NEWS IN BRIEF
cket distribution
>r UT game on
gular schedule
because of the Thanksgiving
iday, student tickets for the
v. 23 football game against
University of Texas will be
awn this week. Seniors
iked up tickets Monday, jun-
's Tuesday, sophomores pull
day, freshmen Thursday and
classes Friday,
e ticket office is open 7
. to 4 p.m Monday
ugh Thursday and 8 a.m.
4 p.m. Friday.
emembrance of
onfire ’99 on
splay in Forsyth
U999 Aggie Bonfire picto-
remembrance goes on
play at Forsyth Center
illeries in the Memorial
udent Center today and will
open for viewing through
dv. 23. Sponsored by the
SC, Student Government
sociation and the Corps of
idets, the display will show-
se photographs, books,
agazines and videos from
e 1999 Aggie Bonfire col-
aseand the public reaction
it, as well as a history of
e90-year-old tradition.
Visitors to the exhibit will
so have the opportunity to
\are written comments.
PUBLIC EYE
In 1999-2000,
more than
5 million
students nationally
borrowed
40 billion
for college.
s three times the amount of 1990.)
Source: USNews.com
Page 3
When
Harry met
Aggies
Page 11
RED
CROSSing
the line
1 Red Cross should have
donated more money to
victims’ families
WEATHER
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FORECASTS COURTESY OF
www.weathermanted.com
OMORROW
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I n |
ResLife probes renegade Bonfire
By BRANDIE LlFFICK
THE BATTALION
Rumors of a possible off-campus
Bonfire built by residents of Hotard Hall
were investigated by the Department of
Residence Life, said Ronald Sasse, direc
tor of Residence Life.
“We have heard various rumors and
went to the hall staff,” Sasse said. “They
spoke with residents, and came back and
told us that there was no such thing going
on. We have to trust what they tell us.”
As a result of the 1999 Aggie Bonfire
collapse, which killed 1 1 students and one
former student, Texas A&M President Dr.
Ray M. Bowen announced that Bonfire
would be postponed until November 2002.
“My decision is based on the simple
truth,” Bowen said in a press conference
u
We just have to trust
what they tell us.
r>
— Ron Sasse
director of Residence Life
in June 2000. “Twill do what is best for
the University and its students. I will do
what is right, even though my decision
could be judged as tough on the students.”
A group composed of both current
and former students. Keep The Fire
Burning (KTFB), was formed last fall in
response to Bowen’s decision. KTFB
announced that they were planning an
off-campus Bonfire.
University officials, the Student
Senate and other student organizations
openly denounced the group’s intentions.
“The University will do everything in
its power to stop students from taking
Bush,
Putin
to meet
in Waco
CRAWFORD, Texas
(AP) — President Bush,
back at his beloved ranch
for the first time in two
months, said Tuesday he
could not wait to give
Russian President Vladimir
Putin “a taste of rural life
here in Texas.”
That taste was shaping
up to be more like a heaping
plateful, as Bush planned to
give his Russian counterpart
the full treatment on his
1,600-acre ranch — a tour
of its seven canyons and
creeks on his four-wheel-
drive John Deere “Gator,”
and a chuck-wagon dinner
of meat and potatoes and
pecan pie.
“1 can’t wait for him to
get to see Texas,” Bush told
local TV reporters after Air
Force One touched down in
his home state
The president and First
Lady Laura Bush came
straight from the president’s
several hours of White
House talks — on the war,
nuclear arms cuts, missile
defense and more — with
Putin and the Russian dele
gation.
Bush said the dialogue on
these things will continue
See Bush on page 2.
Remembering a tragedy
JOHN LIYAS • THE BATTALION
Forsyth Center Galleries Curator and Registrar Cory Arcack and Student Body President
Schuyler Houser look through Bonfire memorabilia to use in the presentation and design of the
Bonfire Pictoral Remembrance. It will be on display in Forsyth from Nov. 14 to Nov. 23.
Morales seeking Democratic Senate bid
AUSTIN (AP) — Victor Morales,
the high school geography teacher
who drove his white pickup truck to a
stunning primary victory in 1996, for
mally announced his new campaign
for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, joining a
growing Democratic field.
“I still have my truck,” he said of
the Nissan that now has 230,000 miles
on it. “It wasn’t a gimmick. I drive it
now because it’s totally paid for. Fiscal
conservative.”
The grandson of Mexican immi
grants, Morales was the state’s first
Hispanic U.S. Senate candidate in 1996.
He waged a populist campaign and
waylaid the political establishment with
his upset win over U.S. Rep. John
Bryant of Dallas. He went on to lose to
Republican Sen. Phil Gramm but cap
tured 44 percent of the vote against the
seasoned incumbent. He also waged a
losing campaign for Congress in 1998.
Gramm is resigning at the end of the
current term.
Morales is just one of several
Democrats on an already crowded
Senate ballot. Former Dallas Mayor
Ron Kirk is among the favorites, with
U.S. Rep. Ken Bentsen of Houston and
former Attorney General Dan Morales
also planning campaigns. Austin attor
ney Ed Cunningham already has
announced he is running in the primary.
See Morales on page 2.
Anthrax found in eight State Department locations
Officials say letter is assumed to be in mail rooms or pouch bags, will be found
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Federal officials said Tuesday
they believe an anthrax-filled
letter that has yet to be found
sickened a State Department
mail handler, a theory bol
stered by traces of anthrax in
eight spots in the building
where he worked.
The State Department
said it would begin hunting
through three weeks’ worth
of unopened mail, searching
for a letter that could
advance the anthrax investi
gation. It was not clear why
that search had not yet
begun, given that health offi
cials have long suspected
that an undiscovered letter
was to blame.
“We have to assume that,
one, there is a contaminated
letter of some kind in our sys
tem, and second of all, that we
will eventually find it in one of
these mail rooms or pouch
bags,” State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher
said Tuesday.
More than two weeks
ago. Dr. Jeffrey Koplan,
director of the Centers for
Disease Control and
Prevention, said it was a vir
tual certainty that another
letter was lurking undiscov
ered. But on Tuesday, the
State Department said it did
not begin looking sooner for
another letter because offi
cials were not yet convinced
one existed.
For its part, the FBI said it
did not press for a quicker
search because it doubts that a
letter will be found even once
they start looking, an assump
tion disputed by both the State
Department and the CDC.
Also Tuesday, the last of
six people to survive inhala
tion anthrax came home after
25 days in a suburban
Washington hospital. Leroy
Richmond, a postal worker at
the city’s contaminated cen
tral facility, said he was
See Anthrax on page 6.
this course of action,” said Cynthia
Lawson, executive director of University
Relations, in a released statement. “We
are doing everything we can to educate
the students and discourage them from
becoming involved in this effort.”
In October 2000, KTFB cancelled plans
for a November Bonfire. Founding member
Will Clark said the group ran out of time to
find an insurance company to cover work
ers and they also lacked financial backing.
“We were just going till we couldn’t
go anymore,” Clark said in a January
2001 interview. “And God knows we
wanted to build this thing.”
Northern
alliance
overtakes
Kabul
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghans
brought their radios out of hiding and
played music in the streets, savoring the
end of five years of harsh Taliban rule as
the northern alliance marched triumphantly
into Afghanistan’s capital Tuesday.
Diplomats sought U.N. help in fashioning a
government for the shattered country.
American jets still prowled the skies in
the south, seeking out convoys of Taliban
fighters retreating toward Kandahar, the
Islamic militants’ last major stronghold.
Strikes also targeted caves where members
of terror suspect Osama bin Laden’s al-
Qaida network were thought to be hiding
Alliance troops celebrated the capture
of the prize they had been fighting for since
they were driven out by the Taliban in
1996. A small number of U.S. troops were
on hand to advise them.
The dizzying cascade of events in
Afghanistan turned the opposition into the
country’s chief power overnight — and
brought to the forefront the issue of ensur
ing that it shares power. The United States
and its allies want a government that
includes groups the ethnic minorities that
make up the alliance and the Pashtuns, the
country’s largest ethnic group.
The alliance leaders said they had
deployed 3,000 security troops across
Kabul to bring order — not to occupy it —
and insisted they were committed to a
broad-based goverment.
The alliance foreign minister, Abdullah
See KABUL on page 6.
Greenspan receives
award from Enron
(AP) — Maybe they will call it the
Dynegy Prize next time.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan
Greenspan was in Houston on Tuesday
night to pick up the Enron Prize for
Distinguished Public Service, an award
named for the teetering energy compa
ny that is being bought by rival Dynegy
Inc. for about $9 billion.
At one point, Greenspan expounded
on the values of ethicism to the Rice
University crowd while CEO Ken Lay,
whose company has been blasted on
Wall Street for concealing transactions
with entities run by the company’s chief
financial officer, looked on.
“My experience is that it really works
to be as ethical as possible as one knows
and to define one’s values in a very suc
cinct and important way,” Greenspan said
when asked by a pending college gradu
ate about venturing into the work world.
Lay, in his first major public appear
ance since the merger announcement,
was met with warm applause and made
some brief congratulatory remarks.
No mention was made of Enron’s
current woes or Lay’s decision earlier in
the day to waive about $60 million he
would be due as the merger closes.
Past winners of the Enron Prize,
awarded by the Baker Institute for Public
Policy at Rice, include Colin Powell,
Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev.