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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 28, 2003)
Aggielife: Fear factor: Vampires • Page 3 Opinion: Save the whales - for oil • Page 9 THE BATTALION Volume 110 • Issue 43 • 10 pages A Texas A&M Tradition Since 1893 www.thebattaIion.net Tuesday, October 28, 2003 Crash kills one A&M student, injures three By Erin Price THE BATTALION Sudeep Jain, a Texas A&M manage ment information systems graduate stu dent, said he can’t remember many details from the automobile accident that occurred Saturday afternoon, leav ing two College Station students dead. “I don’t know why it all happened,” Jain said. “I did not see anything. I just heard someone yell, “Watch out!”’ Civil engineering graduate student Cheng-Hsien Chiang died Saturday at Scott & White Hospital in Temple of injuries sustained in the accident. 16-year- old Edward Franklin Sullivan IV, a junior at St. Joseph Catholic School was also killed in the wreck. Chiang, originally from Taiwan, was riding in a Mercury with four other A&M students on their way back from a church-sponsored event when an oncoming Chevrolet Camaro slammed into them. College Station police said. Sullivan was driving the Camaro CHIANG north on Harvey Mitchell Parkway when he swerved into the southbound lane to miss a Blazer pulling out of a driveway and hit the left side of the Mercury, police said. Chiang, 28, was riding with civil engineering graduate students Prithviraj Chavan, 24, Prashant Jadhav, 23, junior agricultural engineering stu dent Timothy Mulvahill and Jain, who were all hospitalized after the accident. Jain was released from the hospital Sunday afternoon. He said the Camaro hit their car on the left side where Chiang was sleeping in the back seat. Jain was on the right side and received only minor abrasions and a few stitches. “I had just met Chiang on Friday,” Jain said. “He was very soft-spoken and shy. It’s very tragic for him.” Chiang was taken by helicopter to Scott and White Hospital in Temple where he died during surgery. Chavan was also airlifted to Scott and White where he remains in intensive care, hospital officials said. Mulvahill, the driver of the Mercury, was taken to College Station Medical Center, and Jadhav was taken to St. Joseph Hospital in Bryan where both are still in critical condition, hospital personnel said Monday evening. Chiang had just entered A&M this fall to pursue his master’s in engineer ing and received his B.S. degree from the National Taiwan University in Taiwan in 1997. Lois Peters, staff assis tant in the civil engineering depart ment, said Chiang’s family is flying in from Taiwan Wednesday to make funeral arrangements. Chiang was a member of the Taiwanese Student Association and will be remembered at the next Silver Taps to be held Nov. 4. Bonfire Memorial construction begins By Jacquelyn Spruce THE BATTALION Fields are being cleared and construction is set to begin for the Bonfire Memorial that will honor the 12 Aggies who died and the 27 who were injured in the 1999 Aggie Bonfire Collapse, said Wynn Rosser, Texas A&M vice president for student affairs. He said the memorial, to be located on the Polo Fields, should be completed in time for the fifth anniversary of the Bonfire col lapse on Nov. 18, 2004. The memorial will consist of two rings, one inside the other, with 12 portals within the rings: One for each of the 12 Aggies who died. Each portal will con tain a portrait of the individual, their signature and some words written by them or said about them. Rosser said. “People know you by your face, your signature, by the words you say, or the words that are said about you,” Rosser said. Each portal will face the indi- Bonfire Memorial Construction will begin soon on the memorial honoring the 12 Aggies who died and 27 who were injured in the 1999 Aggie Bonfire Collapse. O - Located at the Polo Field O - Completion scheduled for Nov. 18, 2004 O - Will include 12 portals for each student who died © - Cost is estimated at $5 million ANDREW BURLESON • THE BATTALION SOURCE : HTTP://BONFIREMEMORI- AL/.TAMU.EDU vidual’s hometown. A&M Student Body President Matt Josefy, said the memorial will be a reminder of See Memorial on page 2 The mummy returns JP BEATO III • THE BATTALION Dr. Bruce Dickson, professor of anthropology and archaeology, explains Egyptian mummification before Cepheid Variable's showing of the 1932 classic movie, "The Mummy," starring Boris Karloff. Cepheid Variable has begun promoting monster themed events all month leading up to a karaoke costume contest this Friday on Halloween during MSC Aggie Nights. California wildfires threaten 30,000 more homes By Seth Hettena THE ASSOCIATED PRESS SAN DIEGO — Ash fell on the beach like snow and drivers turned on their headlights in the smoky daytime streets Monday as wildfires that have reduced entire neighborhoods to moonscapes skipped through the hills of Southern California and threatened 30,000 more homes. California’s deadliest outbreak of fires in more than a decade has destroyed at least 1,100 homes, killed at least 13 people and con sumed more than 400,000 acres stretching from the Mexican border to the suburbs north east of Los Angeles. “This will be the most expensive fire in California history, both in loss of property and the cost of fighting it,” Dallas Jones, director of the state Office of Emergency Services, said Monday. Several people suffered burns and smoke inhalation, including eight hospitalized at the University of California, San Diego, Medical Center. Two had burns over more than 55 per cent of their bodies, spokeswoman Eileen Callahan said. Managers of California’s power grid estimat ed that 70,000 to 85,000 Southern California customers were without electricity because fires had damaged transmission lines. The dry, hot Santa Ana winds that have fanned the flames began to ease Monday, raising hopes that overwhelmed firefighters could make progress with the help of reinforcements on their way from other Western states. But the danger was still high. President George W. Bush designated the fire-stricken region a major disaster area, open ing the door to grants, loans and other aid to res idents and businesses in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties. “This is a devastating fire and it’s a danger ous fire. And we’re prepared to help in any way we can,” Bush said at the White House. Gov. Gray Davis moved to activate the National Guard and summon help from neigh boring states. He predicted the cost of the fires would be in the billions. He toured the fire area in San Bernardino and saw “just homes reduced to rubble, charred belongings still sending off smoke.” He was followed later by Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had a fire brief ing in Ventura County and praised work by firefighters. He thanked Bush for swiftly declaring an emergency and said he would go to Washington on Tuesday to meet with federal officials “to make sure that the federal money will come through.” “I want to thank them for their hard work. See Wildfires on page 2 Overcoming an inferno When a wildfire is too big to quell by dumping water or digging a path around it, firefighters must starve it by destroying the fuel in the fires path in what is known as a “burnout." Set downhill and downwind of the fire, the burnout moves uphill while the wildfire moves with the wind until j I the two meet. Control line Crew and machinery maintain the control line. Smaller fires are set using flammable helicopter drops to draw the burnout up hill. As much fuel as ’ possible is moved IpP frorn the burnout area to behind the control line. SOURCE: National Park Service, Rural Fire Service Roads will be temporarily closed Thursday from 9:30 a.m to 11:30 a.m. due to an aerial demonstration by the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds 1 Harvey-Mitchell Parkway (2818) will be closed from Wellborn to F&B • Raymond Stotzer Parkway (University Drive) will be closed from Discovery Drive to Turkey Creek • George Bush Drive will be closed from Penberthy Boulevard to Easterwood Airport University Dr. • >—3 CD X > ■< CD Areas where roads will be blocked off RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION SOURCE : TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY; MAP COURTESY OF TRANSPORTATION SERVICES McKeon proposes bill limiting tuition increases By Bart Shirley THE BATTALION U.S. Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R- Calif., has introduced a bill that would limit public university tuition increases. McKeon sponsored the Affordability in Higher Education Act to provide relief to lower and middle income households from the rising cost of higher education. “The congressman is convinced that the higher education systems are in crisis,” said Vartan Djihanian, press secretary for McKeon. “He believes that anyone who desires an edu cation should be able to get one.” The bill would establish a College Affordability Index, which would measure how college tuition increases relate to the rate of inflation. The index would then be made available to the public online. In Texas, for instance, tuition has increased at four-year institutions by 63 per cent in the past decade, compared to only a slight median family income increase of 8 percent in the same period, according to a September report from the House Education and the Workforce Committee. Djihanian said that, according to a study by the Department of Education, 42 percent of qualified students from lower-income households do not attend college. He said the study predicted two million qualified individuals will not go to college by the end of the decade, due largely to the cost of education. Rep. John Carter, the Texas representative for District 31 which includes the Bryan-College Station area, is on the committee with McKeon. “The tuition increases have caused a crisis for parents and students alike,” Carter said. “The goal of public education is to offer affordable and quality edu cation to anyone wishing to go to college. Now we are running the risk of public education not meeting its goal.” Ray Conley, a Texas A&M senior jour nalism major, pays his own tuition each semester and said he is in support of the bill. “I don’t know if the quality of educa tion has gone up (since the tuition deregu lation and increase),” Conley said. “I don’t think they’ve (University offi cials) given us a concrete, good reason for it.” He cited an incident in which fees were added to his statement after the semester began, and he was blocked from registration because of the outstanding amount. “The government pro vides a way for more affordable education, while it seems like the University is always looking for ways to draw in more money,” Conley said. The bill itself is still in its infancy stages, having been unveiled Oct. 16. Djihinian said it has yet to be brought up in the House Education Committee. “It’s still got a long way to go,” The goal of public education is to offer affordable and quality education to anyone wishing to go to college. Notv ive are running the risk of public education J r , yy not meeting its goat. — Rep. John Carter Texas District 31