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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 13, 2004)
iattali fo 3H Monday, September 13, 2004 ;the Battalion olume lit* Issue 12 pages A Texas \&M Tradition Since 1893 OPINION: Deadly drink page 11 www.thehaU.cojn PACE DESIGN BY: LAUREN ROUSE hington. A :al taxes, iged the p« session em; igress isscl urly Octol tax deduci broader ise and Se arate tax x cut fori ference o tcet to neg s in the bi leaker Dei ire marshal reports on University Apartment fire iy HUtCD! not the» tax issue. an a sepan bill that p is for ene’ By Emily Guevara THE BATTALION In a statement released Friday, the State ire Marshal’s Office said a natural gas leak aused the explosion and resulting tire at nied com University Apartments of Texas A&M m July 31, 2004. The statement said the dor service line serv in: “We cannot co on the coil if the fire at this t videnedto [etermined that tl lature,” said Jerr he Texas Dcpartn The gas from tl ■he building thro Into the pipe chast |j-l J, according ti I Hagins declined Ixplosion was the i ifirm me. teaK w the U the ii lat we i is from an ex- 1 building, jiition source ver, it has been s accidental in spokesman for leak came into dilation screen into Apartment nent on whether the poor maintenance. “These are the preliminary results, and the final report will answer questions such as that,” Hagins said. Graduate student Saquib Ejaz’s 4-year-old daughter, Lamiya Zahin, and Ejaz’s mother, Rabeya Chaudhury, died as a result of inju ries sustained in the explosion and fire. Ejaz said he has seen this preliminary re port but he is waiting for the final report. “Even if the whole report is out, 1 do not want to relive that nightmare,” Ejaz said. “Maybe someday, but reading the whole re port is very painful for me.” He said his wife is making daily visits to the hospital. “Her physical therapy may last for six months, and the whole recovery process may last for two years,” Ejaz said. Ejaz’s wife Lufthansa Kama was pregnant See Fire on page 2 ‘Tri ite in Light’ major, sail! far and that imechallfl e male cai ban they The "Tribute in Light” illuminates the sky on Fifth Avenue in New York City Saturday night. The tribute marks the third anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center that killed ,2,973 people. The lights are composed of two JOSHUA HOBSON • THE BATTALION banks of 44 lights each that shone between Murray and Vesey streets in Battery Park near Ground Zero. The lights on the Empire State Building were extinguished for a minute of silence at 9:11 p.m. Suspected bomb found on Northgate Sunday By Jibran Najmi THE BATTALION A suspicious package, suspect ed to be a “pipe-shaped bomb” was found in front of Shadow Canyon on Northgate Sunday morning, prompting the College Station Police Department’s (CSPD) bomb technicians to be called to the scene, said CSPD Police Chief Ed Feldman. The bomb technicians later determined the package con tained no explosive materials and posed no threat. ”1 sent one of my employees to clean out the trash from the planter’s boxes outside, and as he was cleaning them out, he found a device,” said Cory Cas- sel, owner of Zapatos on North- gate. “1 told him to put it back, and because it looked suspicious we called the cops.” Cassel called the CSPD around 10:30 a.m., and officers arrived shortly before 11 a.m. CSPD diverted traffic from Uni versity Drive heading toward Wellborn and called in members of the CSPD Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team. “We found a de vice that had several plastic tubes, and as a precautionary mea sure we diverted traf fic and evacuated the area,” Feldman said. There were no re ported injuries, and the device did not explode. Feldman told The Battalion that the device is now in the custody of CSPD and has been placed in a special contain ment vessel and moved to a re mote location. Feldman said no threats had been reported to the CSPD in regards to the incident and that he did not believe it was linked to terrorism. Double Daves’ Northgate Manager Joe Adair declined to comment, but he did confirm that no specific threats had been made at that establishment. “We were just passing by, and suddenly a cop comes up to us and says ‘You can’t go this way,’ and so we had to backtrack in order to get home,” said David Jarrard, a junior accounting major and a resi dent of Tradition at Northgate. “It was just cops ev erywhere, and traf fic was an absolute mess.” Cassel said he felt the incident af fected his business severely. “We had about five customers in the restaurant at the time, and so we locked the front door, and we had them leave out the back,” Cassel said. “We just lost a whole bunch of business, I mean we were shut down from 11 a.m. to 2 (p.m.), and that’s the entire lunch crowd.” It was just cops everywhere, and traffic was an absolute mess. — David Jarrard resident of Tradition on Northgate Gates ‘mingles’ with student leaders By Lacy Ledford THE BATTALION A&M President Robert Gates shared his person al tips for success with student leaders Thursday at Melrose Apartments in the first-time event “Mingling with the President.” The event, organized by Andrei Duta, assistant lecturer in group communications and Melrose man agement gave students the opportunity to dine with the president while gaining insight from his personal and professional experience. The idea for the program “Mingling with the President” was conceived more than a year ago, after Duta briefly crossed paths with Gates at faculty convocation. “He fit my description of success: service to many,” Duta said. Duta said he would like to continue this program in the future with other speakers. In his address to the students, Gates stressed the im portance of hard work, saying that simply working 9- to-5 won’t cut it. He said to be successful, one should be a problem solver, rather than a problem maker or giver. “What will set you apart from others is when you go to your boss and say, ‘I have a problem, but I think I have a solution,’” he said. Gates reminded students that they will sometimes fail, but success depends on how that failure is handled. “Leaders are people (who) stand up, dust themselves off, and say, well, that wasn’t very much damn fun — I don’t think I’ll do that again,” he said. Gates also revealed the heart of his personal vi sion for A&M. “1 believe (A&M) is a unique American institution that can and should be one of the handful at the very top of the universities of the United States,” Gates said. Gates said what makes A&M special is that it will be the only university on the top rung of among Ameri can universities that has a heart as well as a brain. “It places importance on values, family, loyalty. © A&M President Robert M. Gates recommends these tips to students who wish to become C successful leaders. (7 :: Be good at what you do Work hard Take risks Be a problem solver, not a problem maker Be respectful to everyone Tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear Be loyal and if you can't be - leave Be willing to admit you've made a mistake Have a vision You will fail - whether you succeed depends on how you handle failure BRANDI DUNN • THE BATTALION SOURCE : PRESIDENT ROBERT M. GATES patriotism, character, a sense of tradition and spirit,” Gates said. “If A&M did not have the unique tradi tion of spirit and culture, we would just be another big education factory. There are a bunch of them in the country, including over in Austin.” Gates, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, concluded by saying A&M and the CIA had more in common than either would like to admit. He said both believe they are not understood by any body else, have a strong sense of their contribution to this country and possess a high sense of pride in their See Gates on page 2 'A&U EMS calls decreasing ft t F By Matthew Wilkins THE BATTALION exas A&M may be on track ibr a third subsequent year of wireases in emergency medi- || assistance calls, according to |W data released Friday by the llident Health Services. “The University has been ffiively involved in trying to Buce risk campus-wide,” said Assistant Director Scott Draper. ••Whether the decrease can be ittnbated to those efforts re- nains unclear, Draper said. (Draper said students are ware of the 9-911 emergency :elephone number. The Student alth Service made presenta- iilns this year at orientations for H^pPuidereraduate. graduate and in- HKnatinnal students, and earlier this month the Vice President for ^^^ident Affairs Dean Bresciani ■ J\ y Its .vtv, - -I iriit e-tnailed a memo to all students Hjnforcing the information. tHVc’vc become more inten tional about our marketing efforts for the Student Health Service and EMS in particular,” Draper said. EMS transportation is pro vided at no cost to students other than the mandatory $55 per se mester Health Center Fee. The fee has not been increased since 2002, when the unelected Stu dent Service Fee Advisory Board pushed a $5 hike, despite objec tions by the Student Senate. Mark McCaig, a senior market ing major and president of the stu dent advocacy organization Aggie Watch, said the fee represents a good value at its current level. “The Student Health Service is a prime example of an orga nization that provides quality services without needing a fee increase,” McCaig said. If it were not covered by the Health Center Fee, EMS would cost students more than $500 per incident, according to EMS Coordinator James Gibson. The fee covered $257,394 in EMS transporta tion for students last year. Cowboys shut out in Aggie home opener By Ryan Irby THE BATTALION You only needed to look to the skies on Saturday to notice it was going to be a dismal day for somebody. Just before kickoff, dark clouds loomed over Kyle Field in an ominous fashion, and for the Wyoming Cowboys (1-1), those clouds never lifted. The Texas A&M Aggies (1-1) blanked the Cowboys 31-0 in a game that saw the re-emergence of the Aggie defense, which scored 10 points off turnovers, grabbed three interceptions and had a blitzing scheme that destroyed a potent Cowboy offense that put up 53 points last week. Maybe it was the return to Kyle Field, maybe it was the new pre-game entrance that included a solemn “battle-cry” drum ca dence from the Aggie Band, or perhaps it was the inspiration from the Junction Boys who made a halftime appearance that sparked a victory. Whatever it was, the Aggies should find more of it. A&M looked like a completely different team than the one that suffered an embarrassing 41-21 loss to No. 14 Utah just 11 days ago. “This came at the right time,” said A&M head coach Dennis Franchione. “It’s very tough to get a shutout in college football.” A&M held the Cowboys to only 181 yards of total offense on 62 plays, including -3 yards rushing, a historical number that conjures up images of Wrecking Crew defenses past. In total, the Aggies held the Cowboys to 2.9 yards per play, and -0.1 yards per rush. “Give (A&M) a lot of credit. They were tough,” said Wyoming head coach Joe Glenn. “We didn’t execute mentally or physically. EVAN O’CONNELL • THE BATTALION Aggie freshman Kerry Franks beats junior Wyoming cornerback Brandon Bell on a long pass late in the fourth quarter to move the Aggies ahead 31-0. We felt going into the game that we had some stuff that would work. But we had a couple of penalties that took away momen tum. We just have to execute better, throw the ball sharper and See Home on page 2