Sports: Aggies look to expand win streak • Page 7 opinion: Starving for attention • Page 11
Volume 110 • Issue 66 • 12 pages
Joshua L Hobson • THE BATTALION
|ecretory of Commerce Donald Evans spoke at the George Bush Presidential
library Complex Monday.
A Texas A&M Tradition Since 1893
www.thebattaIion.net
Tuesday, December 2, 2003
Evans: Cabinet must be loyal
By Lindsay Broomes
THE BATTALION
The president’s character and leadership
can be best defined by loyalty and trust,
Secretary of Commerce Donald L. Evans
said Monday at Texas A&M.
During 9-11, Evans said, President
George W. Bush provided the country with
what it needed.
“He provided them with discipline, pas
sion, a steady hand, confidence and faith,”
he said.
He said that only as a team was the
Cabinet able to win a series of tax cuts and
trade promotion authority, legislation
designed to increase trade.
“The economy is definitely picking up
steam,” Evans said. “The president knew that
we as Americans could lead the world by
expanding peace, prosperity and security.”
The president’s goals were set to rally the
country, Evans said. Former President George
Bush said he began the idea of ushering in
freedom, and his son is continuing that plan.
“Other countries love America,” the sen
ior Bush said. “Freedom, free enterprise and
the goodness of the American people is why
America has been so successful in the last
200 years.”
Evans’ travels to other countries have
shown him that the United States has helped
to affect change in the world. Afghanistan
See Evans on page 12
Rother’s changes
name to Traditions
By Lindsay Broomes
THE BATTALION
Rother’s Bookstore hopes to unveil a
esh attitude with the release of its new
ame, Traditions.
Rother’s recently changed the name
its stores in the Bryan-College Station
sa to more closely identify with Texas
&M and its students, said Paul Patti,
[eneral manager for Rother’s stores in
: Bryan-College Station area.
“A name change reflects a new atti-
ide,” said Karen Brooks, general mer-
fiandise manager-buyer for Rother’s
tores.
The stores are replacing their blue
lother’s memorabilia and items includ-
|ig banners, bags and T-shirts, with the
aroon Traditions line.
“This is a gradual process that should
be done about February,” said Patti.
Patti said Rush and buy-back would
luse the Rother’s title to ease students
to the change.
Rother’s is also planning a two-to
ree-year^ project to remodel all the
Jtores' to promote Aggie traditions,
[aintings will be hung along the walls in
dition to memorabilia. Although there
e no formal plans for this project yet,
ork will begin on the stores in the sum-
er of 2004.
Brooks, who has been working with
Rother’s for 25 years, said this is a posi-
change.
It just seems appropriate after this
long,” she said.
Despite the face lift, the stores have
not changed ownership.
“Selection, service and pricing will be
the same quality and standard they
always have. This is a competitive mar
ket, and this is a positive way to stay on
top,” Brooks said. “We never want to
take our stance for granted.” “We are
putting in a lot of effort to continue suc
cess.”
Suanne Pledger, the projects direc
tor for Loupots, said she is not con
cerned about Rother’s changes affect
ing its business.
“Nebraska Publishing still owns
Rother’s,” Pledger said. “Rother’s
founder Dennis Rother actually began at
Loupots and received all of his training
here.”
Holly Scott, general manager of the
Memorial Student Center Bookstore,
said she does not think her store’s sales
will be affected by Rother’s.
Pledger said she thinks that a golf
store, book store and an off-campus resi
dential donnitory all having the same
name — Traditions — could present a
'problem. .
The transition from the Rother’s name
to Traditions has cost the store about
$5,000. The estimated price of the
remodeling could be anywhere from
$ 10,000 to $ 100,000 over the course of
the two-year time frame allotted to com
plete the renovations, Patti said.
Some students are not expressing the
See Bother's on page 2
Fa la la la la
Joshua L. Hobson • THE BATTALION
Jessica Juergens, a junior biomedical sciences major, hangs According to The Associated Press, Christmas lights and other
Christmas lights on her College Station home Monday afternoon. decorations make up a $1.9 billion retail market.
&M students help design hospital
By Carrie Pierce
THE BATTALION
Nineteen Texas A&M environmental
: design students have been working alongside
the architecture firm HKS Architects Inc. in
the design of a short-stay hospital and medical
[)ffice building in Garland, Texas.
Cambridge Holdings and the Presbyterian
lealthcare System commissioned HKS to
mdertake the design for the Presbyterian
9 iarland Center for Diagnostics and Surgery.
HKS Architects Inc. then invited a third-
'ear undergraduate architecture class taught
by George J. Mann, a design studio professor
and project director for A&M, to work along
side the corporation for a real-life experience.
HKS has been an advisory teaching firm to
the College of Architecture since 1973 and
employs more Aggies in the architecture field
than any other firm, said Mann, the Ronald L.
Skaggs endowed professor of Health
Facilities Design.
Junior environmental design major
Jennifer Parlett said students were introduced
to the project by HKS in October when they
visited HKS Architects Inc. The students trav
eled to Garland to view the 70,000 square foot
property being used for the hospital and med
ical office building.
The class then split into teams to come up
with different designs for the health care facil
ity, Mann said.
Junior environmental design major
Dominic Savoie said that since then, the stu
dents have spent countless hours in the
Langford Architecture building perfecting
their designs.
“Every free waking moment I’ve had has
been spent with the design,” she said.
See Design on page 12
Joshua L. Hobson • THE BATTALION
Environmental design majors, senior Melissa Marusak, left, and junior
Lacey Mackey, put the finishing touches on their hospital in Langford
Architecture building Monday afternoon that will be displayed in Dallas.
WHO begins
By Chris Tomlinson
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NAIROBI, Kenya — Tens of thousands of
ictivists and health workers rallied worldwide
Monday to mark World AIDS Day, and officials
lailed new initiatives, new funding and a new pill
ofight the disease that has infected 40 million peo
ple and kills more than 8,000 every day.
The World' Health Organization and UNAIDS
promised cheaper drugs, simpler treatment regi-
SILVER TAPS
v_
Cheng-Hsien Chiang
Civil Engineering
10:30 p.m.
Academic Plaza
program for AIDS patients
mens and more money as part of a campaign
launched in Nairobi to provide 3 million HIV-
infected people with the latest drugs available by
the end of 2005 in a $5.5 billion effort.
WHO also certified an innovative, generic drug
for treating HIV that combines three essential anti
retroviral drugs into one pill to be taken twice a day.
WHO and UNAIDS promised to promote interna
tional agreements to streamline treatment programs.
“In two short decades, HIV/AIDS has become
the premier disease of mass destruction,” said Dr.
Jack Chow, the assistant director-general of WHO.
“The death odometer is spinning at 8,000 lives a
day and accelerating.”
Medecins Sans Frontieres, an aid agency that has
led efforts to simplify HIV treatment, welcomed the
announcement but said funding will be critical.
“The treatment has to be free; if the treatment is
not free, they will not meet their goals,” said Dr.
Morten Rostrup, president of group’s international
council.
Thousands of activists marched and rallied in
See AIDS on page 2
Worldwide control of AIDS failing
International efforts to control the spread of HIV/AIDS are failing,
according to a U.N. report. There are more deaths and infections
this year than ever before and as many as 46 million people live
with the virus.
Newly infected with HIV in 2003
Highest estimates
North
America
54,000
<s»
Western
Europe
40,000
S3>
Eastern Europe,
Central Asia
280,000
m
Caribbean
80,000
South
America
180,000 '
m
North Africa,
Middle East
67,000
Sub-Saharan
Africa
3.4 million
South.
Southeast Asia
1.1 million
I
East Asia
Pacific
270,000
m
Australia.
New Zealand
1,000
SOURCES: United Nations; Associated Press
AP
Researcher found guilty on 47 of 69 charges
By Betsy Blaney
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LUBBOCK, Texas — A world-renowned plague
researcher was convicted Monday of 47 charges but
was acquitted on 22 others, including the most seri
ous allegations related to a bioterrorism scare that
was prompted when he reported that plague samples
had possibly been stolen from his Texas Tech
University lab.
Dr. Thomas Butler, 62, was acquitted on the most
serious charges of smuggling and illegally transport
ing the potentially deadly germ, as well as lying to
federal agents.
He appeared stunned as the verdicts were read
after two days of deliberations. He closed his eyes,
shook his head and fought back tears. After the jury
left the courtroom, Butler’s wife and son hugged him
tightly for several seconds.
The charges stemmed from an investigation fol
lowing his report to police Jan. 14 that 30 vials of the
potentially deadly plague bacteria were missing from
his Texas Tech lab.
The report sparked a bioterrorism scare in this
West Texas city in January and President Bush was
informed of the incident.
In a statement written later, Butler said he acci
dentally destroyed the samples. However, during his
trial he testified that he had no clear memory of
destroying the vials but that they could have been
destroyed during his cleanup of an accident he had
Jan. 3 or 4.
His attorney, Chuck Meadows, said: “We are dis
appointed that the jury did not acquit Tom of all the
charges. We’re going to analyze the jury’s verdict.”