Ml sattaii tot level ij. press' biid. Agcieufe: The beat of a different drummer • Page 3 Sports: Horns run over Aggies* Page 7 5445 and 4 pay all THF BATTALION jRL JML Jmm JtkmJF JLm. JKLm «lE« JmrnJmmmm dHL Volume 110 • Issue 65 • 12 pages A Texas A&M Tradition Since 1893 www.thebattaIion.net A&M could host Hispanic studies away forces has the Arm\ ed Stats 2i By Erin Price THE BATTALION A new Hispanic studies department could be oming to Texas A&M in the fall of 2004 as part of the campuswide goal of becoming a top-10 ic university by 2020. The new department would include courses in (he Spanish language, Hispanic cultures and the Jniversity’s first courses in Portuguese, pending nal approval. “Students whom I have talked to are enthusi- istic supporters,” said Stephen Miller, chair of reorganization subcommittee for Hispanic tudies and a professor of modem and classical languages. “They understand how the new lepartment will be able to help them attain their icademic and professional goals.” The Department of Modern and Classical Languages would be divided into two new departments: the Department of Hispanic Studies and the Department of European and Classical Studies, Miller said. The current budget for the Department of Modern and Classical Languages will be split proportionately to fund the two departments, he said. “Most universities like ours don’t have one sin gle language department,” said Craig Kallendorf, interim head of the modern and classical language department. “It’s part of our effort to bring our department in line with the Vision 2020 goals.” Many Hispanic students say they feel that this new degree program could help A&M become a more well-rounded University. “It’s about time that A&M offered this type of program,” said Phillip De La Pena, a junior histo ry major. “Texas A&M is a flagship university and needs to offer more multicultural programs.” Presidential review CES Driving. r mat 1 "?' 20>1 ... Former President George Bush and University President they pass the reviewing stand just before the Texas A&M vs. Robert M. Gates review members of the Corps of Cadets as University of Texas game Friday afternoon at Kyle Field. Students help improve Indonesian agriculture By Dan Orth THE BATTALION In the summer of 2001, Andres Barahona, a senior agricultural economics major, traveled to Bali, Indonesia, for an internship and started a fresh fruit process ing business with a group of Indonesians. By the end of the trip he could converse in Bahasa Indonesia, the country’s official lan guage. He said the experience opened his eyes. “(It) helped me understand the need for help in the world,” Bahasa said. He and other Texas A&M students worked with Indonesians to set up business es aimed at improving Indonesia’s food pro duction and moving its economy forward. These students were involved in part of a larger project that the International Ag Office has recently completed called the Education for community food Enterprise Development (ECFED). The food development program had two main goals: to improve small-and medium sized food enterprises and to strengthen Indonesian universities’ abilities to research while improving collaboration with private businesses. Cliff Hoelscher, the project leader of ECFED, said the group’s biggest focus was to improve Indonesia’s food technology to increase food production efficiency. “Indonesia’s greatest need is food tech nology and through the project, we provid ed it,” Hoelscher said. Ninety-five million of Indonesia’s 223 million people work in food production, which is extremely high in comparison to the United States’ 2 percent to 3 percent. Simple economics shows that if food production was to become more efficient, it would free mass amounts of labor that Indonesia could put to other productive uses. Hoelscher said Indonesia could have a more productive economy if its food system did not involve so many people. “When you go to Indonesia, everywhere you look you see small subsistence farms, but they do have pockets of high technolo gy,” Hoelscher said. Hoelscher said Indonesia is not the only beneficiary for the project. “Most of our project focuses on building up Indonesia’s food systems, but we are driven to create a market for U.S. exports,” he said. Hoelscher said some exports include Texas cotton and wheat. Twenty-five A&M professors from a wide array of fields traveled to Indonesia during the project’s five-year span to put on workshops that “trained the trainers” of Indonesia. Workshop topics focused on food nutrition, food safety, packaging techniques and new product development. Barahona and other interns from A&M began their trip with a 10-day crash course in Bahas, Indonesia, at an Indonesian universi ty. They then spread out to different universi ties to begin their project. Barahona worked with Indonesians to draw up a business plan which focused on processing fresh fruit, and they began carrying out the business plan. Mangoes are an example of why Indonesia needs better food processing facilities. Indonesians feed 30 percent of the country’s mangoes to animals because they are bruised and not edible for fresh con sumption Hoelscher said. These bruised mangoes can be canned or processed and then used by Indonesians. Other current projects focus on training more students and improving Indonesia’s cold storage and cold transportation. Ed Price, associate vice chancellor for International Agriculture and Federal Relations, said several former students con tributed to the creation of ECFED. “The project idea began with a student who was on an internship in an embassy in Indonesia,” Price said. “When he came back, we began development on a program to deal with issues that he saw in Indonesia and issues we had been focusing on.” Price said students can make a difference by working on projects such as these. “Students are incredibly productive on international projects and are a real asset,” he said. Pinching pounds | Gastric bypass surgery - commonly known as stomach stapling - curtails the absorption of nutrients from food, thereby 1 causing a person to lose weight. The stomach is separated into two parts. The upper part forms a small egg sized pouch. It is then connected to the lower part of the small intestines. In order for digestive juices from the lower stomach to assist in digestion, the duodenum is reconnected to the lower section of the small intestine. NOTE: The surgery shown, a Roux- en-Y gastric bypass, is one of four types of gastric bypass surgeries. [SOURCES: U.S. Bariatric Inc.; [ Forest Health Services Corp.; ' The Surgical Weight Loss Center Obesity surgery popularity makes dramatic gains By Karen Testa THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BOSTON — Ken Powers knew the potential dangers of having his stomach stapled, but to a man who had tipped the scales at 475 pounds, those risks didn’t much matter. “I had this thought: If I die on the operating table, having the surgery to try to better my life, I thought it was a better thing to do than to live the way I was living, which, in my opin ion, I was kind of waiting to die anyway,” he said. By the tens of thousands, morbidly obese people who have failed at diets, support groups and exercise programs are turn ing to surgery to lose weight. In 1998, there were 25,800 obesity-related operations, most of them gastric-bypass procedures commonly known as stomach sta pling. This year, the American Society for Bariatric Surgery esti mates 103,200 operations. Questions about the risks and growing use of the procedures surfaced in recent weeks after two patients in New England died during stomach-stapling surgeries. However, obesity spe cialists say the procedure is safer than it has ever been — and that is contributing to the growing popularity. And for most patients, the risk of not having the surgery is greater. “It’s an operation that helps cure people of this disease which is life-threatening. People see it as some type of cosmetic surgery, when it’s not. More patients die waiting for surgery than die after surgery,” said Dr. Janey Pratt, a surgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital Weight Center in Boston, which does about 300 gastric bypasses a year. The operation involves using staples or stitches to close off part of the stomach to form a small pouch about the size of an egg, which limits how much See Obesity on page 2 U.S. troops repel coordinated attacks U.S. troops repelled simultaneous attacks by Iraqi forces in Samarra, killing at least 46 Iraqis and wounding at least 18. Five American soldiers and a civilian were wounded during the fighting. TURKEY losul • Samarra SYRIA Baghdad SAUDI '' ARABIA 0 100 mi 0 Too km SOURCES: Associated Press: ESRI AP Rebel attacks spur firefight By Niko Price THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BAGHDAD, Iraq — In the dead liest reported firefight since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, U.S. sol diers fought back coordinated attacks Sunday using tanks, cannons and small arms in running battles through out the northern city of Samarra. The troops killed 46 Iraqi fighters, and five Americans were wounded. Minutes later, two South Korean contractors were killed nearby in a roadside ambush in what U.S. offi cials called a new campaign aimed at undermining international support for the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. Attacks on Saturday killed seven Spaniards, two Japanese diplomats and a Colombian oil worker. Lt. Col. William MacDonald of the 4th Infantry Division said attackers, many wearing uniforms of Saddam’s Fedayeen militia, opened fire simulta neously on two U.S. supply convoys on opposite sides of Samarra. After barricading a road, the See Attacks on page 2 Experts fear proposed penal code changes HOUSTON (AP) — Lawmakers who tinker with the state’s penal code unintentionally could cause future prison overcrowding, a state senator and some legal experts worry. State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, who served as the chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee and rewrote the code in 1993, said lawmakers’ good intentions could have unintend ed consequences. He said each time the code is altered, interpretation becomes more difficult. “The idea of a penal code is to have broad categories and leave it to prosecutors,” Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley said. “You can’t come up with a list of all the dumb things people do.” The code was rewritten in 1993 based on an American Law Institute model. When the rewrite occurred the state’s guidelines had been amended so many times they were unmanageable. Since that time, the amendments have begun once again, Whitmire said. “There are literally hundreds of bills passed which reach into the penal code of 1993,” he said. A council formed by the Legislature in 1983 See Penal code on page 2