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ERVE R May 4, 1984 A Journal of Free Voices $1.00

THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION CONTIiilgb ue By Louis Dubose Matamoros, Tamaulipas, a campesino movement which would, for AND. Not arcane economic theory 400 landless farmworkers in this border reduced to a political tract, but a state, "fulfill part of the promise of the L collective vision, plain and simple: Revolution." The Revolution, by most reclaiming a patrimony 400 years lost. This accounts, ended some 60 years ago. was the soul of the Mexican revolution. Luna and Lira were arrested on March And on the 65th anniversary of the 2 just when it appeared that negotiations assassination of the one leader who inspired between the government and farmworkers that vision, land remains the soul of what occupying part of a 50 thousand-acre tract remains of the Revolution. `If Zapata were of federally-owned land here were close to living today," argued Gregorio Luna Mar- a conclusion. They argue that they are tinez from his corner in the minimum political prisoners. They are, they claim, security cell of the Matamoros municipal locked up because they were close to forcing jail, "he would be locked up with us." government agencies to comply with agrar- ian reform law and concede the occupied Both Luna and his cellmate, Rodolfo Lira land to petitioning campesinos. Rivera, face state charges for their part in (Continued on Page 7)

, In This Issue: ....46.1.10.A.... UT Terms Central The View * of Endowment America Debate from El Paso • PAGE TWO • The Return of

It 1111 11111/11 1.11 it i it,: I III 1111 Simpson-Mazzoli I I

Austin HERE THERE IS A BORDER — delineated, etched, TETXDB in this case, by the meandering bed of the Rio SERvER W Grande — there is also flux. Follow the curves © The Observer Publishing Co.. 1984 of the river through Ciudad Juarez or Laredo or Reynosa Ronnie Dugger, Publisher or Brownsville. Large economic and social forces grate on each other there, sliding over and under each other like huge Vol. 76, No. 9 7 4=0) May 4, 1984 geological plates constantly in motion, where the First World Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Democrat, meets the Third. which in turn incorporated the Austin ForuM-Advocate. But the borders of their meeting are not determined entirely EDITOR Geoffrey Rips by geography. This is where the Mexican peso devaluation ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dave Denison meets the North American recession. The absence of a EDITOR AT LARGE Ronnie Dugger sanitation system in vast parts of Nuevo Laredo is mirrored CAREY McWILLIAMS FELLOW: Nina Butts by the absence of a sanitation system in colonias around Pharr. Radiation released in a junkyard in Ciudad Juarez contaminates CALENDAR: Chula Sims WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Al Watkins a school in El Paso, while the Environmental Protection LAYOUT AND DESIGN: Alicia Daniel Agency tests the burning of PCBs in the Gulf of Mexico EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Frances Barton. Austin.; Elroy Bode, Kerr- not far from the mouth of the Rio Grande. The labor of the ville; Chandler Davidson, ; Bob Eckhardt, Washington, D.C.; Sissy Rio Grande Valley, as well as that of the Valley of the Rio Farenthold, Houston; Ruperto Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, Cam- bridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana. Bravo (in Mexico), has been exploited at least since the time Ill.; Molly Ivins, ; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, that the railroads of North America arrived at the river to Jr., ; Willie Morris, Oxford. Miss.; Kaye Northcott, Austin; James meet the railroads from the south. Presley, Texarkana, Tx.; Susan Reid, Austin; A. R. (Babe) Schwartz, Galveston; Fred Schmidt, Tehachapi, Cal., Robert Sherrill, Tallahassee, Fla. As our cover story by Louis Dubose indicates, there is CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Warren Burnett, Nina Butts, Jo Clifton, Craig great unrest across the river, fueled by the inequities of a Clifford, John Henry Faulk, Ed Garcia, Bill Helmer, Jack Hopper, Amy Johnson, stagnated agrarian reform movement. Observer contributor Laurence Jolidon, Mary Lenz, Matt Lyon, Greg Moses, Rick Piltz, Susan Raleigh, Paul Sweeney, Michael Ventura, Lawrence Walsh. Scott Lind was tortured' during interrogation by Mexican CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Alan Pogue, Russell Lee, Scott Van authorities while he was covering a hunger strike by Zenith Osdol. workers in Reynosa. Lind's work for the Valley Monitor CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS: Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein, Dan Hubig, Kevin covering the Zenith strike and the agrarian unrest around Krenek, Ben Sargent, Gail Woods. Reynosa led to his detention. A journal of free voices And there is unrest on this side of the river: voter registration drives and organizing against inadequate public services and We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find unemployment. There is the creation of a political constituency it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of humankind as the foundation of less vulnerable to exploitation. democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never All the while, the great sociological plates of inadequate will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the power- health care, unemployment, environmental peril, and unfair ful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. • Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have labor practices shift back and forth across the river. On April not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply 25, 205 members of the Mexican labor force were transported that we agree with them because this is a journal of free voices. by the U.S. Department of Labor and the Virginia Agricultural Growers Association, as part of the U.S. guestworker (H- Business Manager Frances Barton 2) program, to work in the tobacco fields of Virginia while Assistant Alicia Daniel unemployment among Valley farmworkers runs between 33 Advertising, Special Projects Cliff Olofson and 50 percent. Editorial and Business Office At the same time, the Valley has become the battleground 600 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701 in which the fight between the churches and U.S. immigration (512) 477-0746 •si..*:A...wwwr.4Alte,os authorities will be waged concerning the right to safe haven The Texas Observer (ISSN 0040-4519) is published biweekly except for a three-week inter- val between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Observer Publishing for Central American refugees. The arrest of Jack Elder of Co., 600 West 7th Street. Austin, Texas 78701, (512) 477-0746. Second class postage paid Casa Oscar Romero in San Benito (TO, 3/9/84) and the trial at Austin, Texas. of Catholic lay worker Stacey Merkt on charges of transporting Single copy (current or back issue) $1.00 prepaid. One year, $20: two years, $38: three years, S56. One year rate for full-time students. $13. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rates refugees have brought out leaders of many denominations in on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Zeeb Road, public opposition to the current policies of the Immigration Ann Arbor. Michigan 48106. Copyright 1984 by Texas Observer Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Material may and Naturalization Service. not be reproduced without permission. Yet once again there is a concerted effort in the United POSTMASTER: Send form 3579 to: 600 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. States Congress and among members of the Reagan

2 MAY 4, 1984 irpositoroWASIMMOINNW► 4 1•11 A1 - ' rift 11,- Vie -0101111M000011r - Ad" " 1 ' ise - Administration to pass a set of immigration laws that would the United Farm Workers says that, while all the political threaten the constitutionally-guaranteed civil liberties of large candidates are courting the Hispanic vote, "our opposition segments of our population while ignoring the realities of our [to Simpson-Mazzoli] is falling on deaf ears. On a daily basis border and of immigration to this country. Simpson-Mazzoli we hear that 'the hands that pick the crops will pick the next is back. President.' If this is so, then why do we have such little clout In 1983, House Speaker Tip O'Neill killed consideration on this issue, which we unanimously oppose?" The violation of the bill, fearing it would be a 1984 liability for the of the civil liberties of a segment of the population is not Democrats, particularly among Hispanic voters. But O'Neill a special interest but is a national interest. was roundly attacked for surrendering to "special interests" The Simpson-Mazzoli bill is \discriminatory, and it is — civil liberties having been relegated to the special interest ineffective. It does not begin to address the real borders of bin. This year O'Neill apparently is not quite -so concerned this country. No matter how many walls of words and laws about such interests. Last year Congressman Jim Wright, D- Congress tries to erect, it will not, as Willard Gingerich says Fort Worth, O'Neill's heir apparent, opposed Simpson- in the poem in this issue, make us "immune/certainly not Mazzoli "because he did not feel many who had a deep interest secure/behind a trivial river/that killdeer skim across." G. R. in the bill had been heard yet," his press secretary told the Observer. This year Wright is a proponent of the bill, having applied the cosmetics of his own amendment to the package. (Wright's amendment extends eligibility for permanent residence amnesty to those entering illegally between January 1, 1982, and January 1, 1984, provided they meet certain OF MUNICIPAL standards and study English and U.S. history and government.) BONDAGE: Who HE CHIEF PROVISIONS of the Simpson-Mazzoli bill remain (TO, 9/16/83), including a national worker's T identification card, sanctions against employers hiring Owns Austin? undocumented workers, an H-2 program allowing the hiring of foreign workers, and the granting of temporary or Austin permanent resident status to certain categories of undocu- OU REMEMBER AUSTIN — The city that voted in mented workers with the proviso that they be ineligible for 1981 to sell its share of the South Texas Nuclear federal assistance for three to five years. In addition, refugees y Project, showing courageous independence and can be excluded summarily with narrow restrictions on the foresight while other municipalities cowered before the right to judicial review. authority of energy and utility companies and the spectre of A national worker's identification card would be a threat energy shortages: Yet here we are two-and-a-half years later, to the civil liberties of all U.S. residents; sanctions against and the City Council of Austin has authorized the issuance employers would lead to discrimination against workers of of another $605 million in revenue bonds to pay for the city'S Hispanic, Caribbean, and Asian origin since Latin America, share of the project. And they are doing it twice — on March Asia, and the Caribbean are currently the sources of most 1 and again on May 10 (in an attempt to rectify possible undocumented. workers. An H-2 program would further open-meeting violations during February). This authorization depress wages and hinder union activity in this country, as is being made in violation of the city's charter, which requires well as feed U.S. unemployment. Undocumented workers who elections on all revenue bonds. (The city argues that a state are given resident status but denied federal benefits would statute allowing revenue bonds without elections supersedes suffer_ from taxation without representation or remuneration, the city charter.) as they would be paying into tax and social security systems Why is the City of Austin still bound to the South Texas (as they do now) from which they could not benefit. Nuclear Project? Part of the answer may lie in the interlocking Congressman Ed Roybal, D-, has offered an directorates and interests of Texas Commerce Bancshares and alternative to Simpson-Mazzoli that wapld strengthen existing Houston Industries, whose subsidiary, Houston Lighting and fair labor laws and standards so that it would not be profitable Power, is the managing partner in STNP. for a U.S. employer to hire undocumented workers. Roybal's It seems that on February 7, City Manager Jorge Carrasco H.R. 4909 sets new guidelines for I.N.S. enforcement told the council that they had waited too long to schedule practices and eliminates the H-2 program. It also creates a an election on further bonding authority for STNP payments. national commission to study the real problems of immigration If the Council scheduled an election and that election were and to formulate long-term solutions. contested in court, the city would run out of money. Austin Roybal's proposals are supported by the Mexican American would then either default on their payments to STNP or raise Democrats of Texas, the National Education Association, the electric bills 35%. The council, therefore, needed to borrow U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Jewish ComMit- short-term money to avoid either the default or the rate tee, the United Farm Workers, and New Mexico Governor increase. Toney Anaya. Yet they are being given short shrift by the But apparently in a February 8 executive session, the city's House leadership and have not been scheduled for a committee financial advisors told the City Council that the banks would hearing, while Simpson-Mazzoli rolls right along. O'Neill not loan the city short-term money if the council decided seems to have forgotten that he had urged Roybal to come to go to the voters for more bonds. The banks would only up with a bill that could be supported by Hispanic members provide interim financing if the council violated the Charter of Congress. and authorized $605 million without the voters — enough In this crucial election year, it is important that the money to finish Austin's 16% share of STNP under the current Democratic leadership recognize the folly of the Simpson- $5.5 billion estimate. The council responded by voting 7-0 Mazzoli bill and the breadth of the opposition to the bill, to proceed with the $605 million authorization and to file particularly in minority communities. Rebecca Harrington of a bond validation suit. THE TEXAS OBSERVER 3 Opponents of the council's actions answered the bond of Southwest Bancshares, and Stewart Orton of the Bank of validation suit challenging the city's authority to issue bonds the Southwest and Howard W. Horne of Allied Bancshares. without voter approval and alleging the council conducted its So Houston Industries is protecting its investment in the STNP business in repeated violation of the open meetings South' Texas Nuclear Project. The holding companies are law. protecting their lines of credit to Houston Industries. But who In addition, on February 23, the council signed a contract is protecting the citizens of Austin or the other partner cities with Texas Commerce Bank National Association, which in the South Texas Nuclear Project? Certainly not their city would act as a guarantor of $120 million in short-term notes, councils. sold to Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith, Inc., and There is a movement afoot in Austin to recall the Austin Prudential-Bache. As part of the contract, the council promised mayor and city council for their violation of the city charter to authorize the $605 million bond sale, which it did on March in not going to the voters on a bond issue. Certainly this 1' council should be recalled. The citizens of Austin should be To avoid a trial on the open-meetings violations, the council allowed to vote — if not on bonds, then on those who authorize on April 19 began the bond authorization process over again. them illegally. And if there is a city council member who But now the financial conditions have changed dramatically. should not be recalled, as perhaps Roger Duncan should not, Litigation over a $97 million bond issue for STNP passed he or she should be made to walk through that fire of a recall by voters in January 1983 ended in late March providing the election in order to be reminded that the source of power city with the revenue needed to avoid the default/rate increase in a democracy lies not with the utilities or the holding problem. companies. The point to be made here — aside from the fact that the Then we can move on to the prospect of cancellation. council violated its own charter — is that the city was advised Contrary to the assertion that Austin's default on payments that the leading lending institutions would not grant it short- would ruin the city's bond rating, extrication from the South term money if an election were held. The major lender in Texas Nuclear Project may be the only way for Austin to . this case is Texas Commerce Bank. Texas Commerce Bank salvage its decent bond rating and turn its bond revenue to National Association of Houston (of which the holding energy and water projects that will serve the city's needs. company, Texas Commerce Bancshares, is the parent A representative of the municipal .bond division of company) issued a $156 million line of credit in 1983 to Shearson/American Express told the Observer his company Houston Industries and its subsidiaries and holds $40 million is advising potential investors against investing in City of in pollution control bonds for Houston Lighting and Power. Austin Electrical Power, Water Works, and Sewer System Moreover, Don D. Jordan, President and Chief Executive revenue bonds or in City of San Antonio Electric and Gas Officer of Houston Industries, is a director of Texas Commerce System bonds "because of involvement with the South Texas Bancshares, as are Houston Industries board members James Nuclear Project." Shearson/American Express does not feel R. Lesch and Thomas B. McDade (who are also directors this way about all municipalities associated with nuclear power of Texas Commerce Bank National Association). Other board' plants, he advised, but the construction delays and cost . members are also directors of other lending institutions and overruns have driven municipal costs sky-high and make for their holding companies; they are: John T. Cater, chairman a poor investment. G. R.

The Central America Debate

Washington Senator John Tower of Texas backed danger of "military attack on the ." HE FIRST TWO WEEKS of the Administration and its actions all the rr April saw a remarkable debate way as the House and Senate passed "What next, Mr. President? What in the Senate on the Reagan non-binding resolutions to stop the next? I will tell you what next," .Administration policy in Central Amer- mining. The two weeks of apparently Kennedy said. "Smile guerrilla on the . ica, and the two senators from Texas momentous debate on Central American ground with a rocket is going to shoot were consistently on the wrong side. policy produced much clamor, but down one of those U.S. planes and a Congress continued to fund aid to El Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, now U.S. pilot is going to be killed or being promoted for the vice-presidential Salvador and the contras in Honduras perhaps even taken hostage or captured spot on the 1984 Democratic ticket, and Nicaragua. and President Reagan will take to the stump to declare that the United States supported military aid to El Salvador March 29 and the ..covert war against Nicaragua has been the victim of an act of war. while voting with the dissenters on two On March 29 Bentsen and 'Tower We are being led into war. . . . The major issues. Bentsen also took a twice voted against Kennedy amend- United States is heading toward war in powder during votes on whether to ments that would have prevented the Central America and what are we going prohibit U.S.-financed terrorism and to introduction of U.S. combat forces into to do to stop it?" stop CIA mining of Nicaraguan waters. war-torn Central America unless Con- Comparing the issue to the Tonkin At one point Bentsen was locked in gress had declared war or authorized the Gulf resolution of 1964, Kennedy said direct debate with Senator Edward combat commitment in advance or the question was: "Are we going to give Kennedy, D-Mass., who led the Senate unless the President sent the forces in this President a blank check with regard revolt against President Reagan's Cen- to abet immediate evacuation of U.S. to . . . the loss of American lives?" Sen. tral American policy. citizens or to respond to the immediate Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. , chimed in:

4 MAY 4, 1984 "When are we going to learn? How did not spawn terrorism or death squads "If we do not," Kennedy said, "we many lessons do we need? . . . The in El Salvador. are sending a very clear message, Mr. power to declare war rests in the "I do not know who is to blame for President. It is one that I certainly do Congress of the United States." death squad murders. I have my not want to have any part in, or anything The first Kennedy amendment, apply- suspicions. . . . We have told the to do with." ing to Nicaragua and El Salvador, was government of El Salvador, at the Kennedy's amendment was then de- defeated 71-20. The second one, which highest levels, that death squad activity feated, 69-24, with both Texans voting would have applied to Nicaragua only, must cease. with the majority. They were on the was rejected 72-23. Both Texans voted "As far as I know . .. we have had prevailing side again as the Senate against the amendments. Neither spoke. some real success in this regard. It has refused, 54-39, to cut off all aid to El been several months now since there has Salvador until justice was done concern- been a prominent murder attributed to ing the churchwomen's murders. They April 2 the death squads. However, several voted the same day to kill an amendment On April 2, Bentsen and Tower voted prominent right-wing politicians .. . to cut off aid until the President certified to kill a Kennedy amendment to cut aid have been assassinated. We have all seen that the Salvadoran government had to El Salvador from $62 million to $21 pictures of their bodies in the papers. agreed to unconditional negotiations with all major parties that would also million, and it was killed, 63-25. "Where is the outcry in this body against left-wing death squads? Are we agree to them. That lost 63-26. only concerned with violence from the April 3 right? Mr. President, in June 1981 more April 4 Bentsen came into the floor debate the than 800 people a month were being The day of April 4, Bentsen reversed next day to oppose a Kennedy amend- killed by civilian violence in El Salva- himself on the question of prohibiting ment that would have ended military aid dor. Last month, accordina to State combat troops except under certain to El_ Salvador after May 31 "unless that Department information, thatL' figure was circumstances, despite his having voted government has initiated a prosecution down to 68. .. . the other way twice on March 29. This of those involved in the murder of two "When we are talking about Central time the proposal came from Sen. American labor advisers in 1981." America there is no moat, there is no Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., but this time with Kennedy said that ten days earlier the drawbridge — there is only Mexico. . . . Bentsen as a co-sponsor rather than an government of El Salvador had released I do not think we should be turning five opponent. Capt. Edward Avila, "who, by his own million Salvadorans over to 11,000 Leahy's amendment would have admission, provided the weapon that insurgents supported by Nicaragua, conditionally prohibited U.S. combat was used to gun down in cold blood two Cuba, and the Soviet Union. . . . I, for forces in or over El Salvador; except American labor advisers and the head one, fail to see how we can achieve our for provisions designed to induce quick of the Salvadoran land reform pro- objectives by turning our back on El congressional action if the President gram." Salvador." came to the Hill in an urgent situation, In January 1981, so ordered by Avila, Kennedy returned to the attack, it was substantially the same as the two according to American Institute for Free saying he was amazed by comments earlier Kennedy proposals. Labor Development investigators, two from Bentsen and another senator In the course of the debate Sen. Salvadoran national guardsmen shot the "about unsolved murders in El Salva- Joseph Biden, D-Del., said he fully three men with a machine gun. which dor. . . . We are talking about organized believes that if Reagan is re-elected, "by Avila and another Salvadoran officer assassination squads, whether they be this time next year we will have gave them. from the left or right. . . . We are Americans fighting in El Salvador." talking about two national guardsmen Taking the other side, Sen. _ Barry Rising to oppose Kennedy's amend- who admitted that . . . Mr. Avila gave ment at length, Bentsen said "it is in Goldwater, R-Ariz., said: "The north- them the gun. And they went out and ern neighbors of Central America are our national interest to continue our killed two Americans." assistance" to the Salvadoran govern- Mexico. I live on the borders of Mexico. ment. He does not want D'Aubuisson Kennedy said he was also amazed that I can tell this body they have never been to win the presidency in the forthcoming neither Bentsen nor two other senators happy about the war with Mexico, which runoff, Bentsen said, but now is the time he identified were introducing amend- we fought without any good reason and "to indicate our support for the demo- ments to limit aid to El Salvador until which we won and we took land from cratic process in El Salvador." there is a verdict in the case involving Mexico. And many times they smilingly look at me and say, 'You are living on "We all deplore the ravages of the the murder of the four American death squads; we all deplore the corrup- churchwomen. our land and some day we are going tion and injustice in El Salvador; we are "No," Kennedy went on, "we get up to get it back.' And I do not doubt that that all dismayed at the lack of progress in on our high horses and say that we are there will be a time in history when bringing to trial those responsible for not going to provide any kind of effort will be made." the murder of American churchwomen conditioning with regard to the murder With Kennedy saying this vote was and labor representatives," Bentsen told of Americans who happened to be labor "the third time, the third strike," on the Senate. But the critics are danger- advisers and were shot down in cold the question of U.S. combat forces in ously wrong, suggesting that U.S. blood. . . . Central America, the Senate again support "is somehow to blame for all "If we are concerned about the cause defeated the prohibition 59-36, Bentsen the blood and injustice," he said, of justice, decency and human rights and voting with Kennedy while Tower voted continuing: we are concerned about American lives, with the majority as usual. "The fact is that El Salvador has been before we go ahead and appropriate Kennedy then immediately turned to a massive killing ground for half a many more millions of dollars, we must his proposal to prohibit the ongoing century. Terror and mayhem are en- say that we mean business when it comes covert aid to the contras in Nicaragua. demic to the country. The United States to organized murder and death squads. He said U.S. support for the contras' THE TEXAS OBSERVER 5 attempt to overthrow the government of for reasons of politics as well as policy, news the next day that the mining of that country violates U.S. treaty obliga- we should be cautious in denying the Nicaraguan harbors was conducted from tions as a member of the United Nations President his request. I reply in the a ship controlled by the CIA. "During and the Organization of American words of Edmund Burke: 'A conscien- the Senate debate this week," wrote the States. In support he presented a tious man would be cautious how he Journal, "the Intelligence Committee statement to that effect issued by 100 dealt in blood.' Today, the blood of chairman, Barry Goldwater, surprised professors of law, including these six Nicaraguans is spilled; and tomorrow, other senators by openly referring to a from Texas institutions: Barbara it could be the blood of our sons." document or paper indicating the admin- Aldave, David B. Filvaroff, L. A. Goldwater responded to Kennedy on istration had directly authorized the Powe, Jr., and Roy M. Mersky of the the question of legality. The President, mining. Mr. Goldwater's remarks were University of Texas Law School, and he said, has the legal authority to dropped from the published record made Beverly Carl and Charles 0. Galvin of conduct covert action. Beyond that, he available yesterday ... " the SMU School of Law. said, the right of individual and collec- In a remarkable oration lost in the tive self-defense is recognized by the April 10 cacophony of the debate and the clatter- UN charter and the Rio treaty, and "El The Senate angrily rebuked Reagan ing of typewriters in the press gallery, Salvador and Honduras have a clear with an 84-12 non-binding declaration Kennedy exclaimed: right to defend themselves against armed that the CIA mining should stop. "The covert operation in Nicaragua attack, and the United States has a clear Bentsen was among four who didn't vote . . . has been totally counterproductive. right to assist them. . . . We feel, after on the resolution. Rather than weakening the Sandinistas long discussion, that we are operating inside of Nicaragua, the secret war has within the law." April 12 consolidated their support among the When Kennedy's proposal went Two days later, the House less over- people. down, 61-30, Bentsen was not with him, whelmingly followed the Senate's lead. "Rather than isolating Nicaragua but voted to continue the covert aid to Rep. Jim Wright of Fort Worth, the from the Soviet Union and Cuba, the the contras. House Democratic Majority Leader, secret war has driven Nicaragua to rely Sen. Dodd then proposed, startlingly, was touched up during the debate for more and more on assistance from those to prohibit any of the money being used having signed a letter along with nine nations. "for planning, directing, executing or other • top House Democrats to the "Rather than limiting the conflict in supporting acts of terrorism in, over, Sandinista chief, Daniel Ortega, urging Central America, the secret war has or offshore from the territory of Nicara- him to permit valid elections and civil expanded the hostilities which now gua." He asked, "What is our real liberties. threaten to widen into Honduras. objection to Khaddafi or Arafat or Idi The House passed a non-binding "Rather than keeping the United Amin — only that they are not on our resolution saying that no U.S. taxpayers' money should be used to mine the ports States out of war in Central America, side?" or territorial waters of Nicaragua. On the secret war has drawn us deeper and Kennedy pressed the point home, deeper into this new quagmire and it is citing published reports that the contras, the 281-111 vote, Texans provided nine of the no's — these came from Bill now clear that U.S. personnel are funded by U.S. taxpayers, have been becoming more and more involved. "attacking farm cooperatives; Archer, R-Houston; Steve Bartlett, R- ambushing peasants; sinking fishing Dallas; Jack Fields, R-Houston; Phil "This policy is not only wrong legally boats; murdering schoolteachers; and Gramm, R-College Station; Ralph Hall, and morally, it has not only .been a killing school children." D-Rockwall; Sam Hall, D-Marshall; failure militarily, it has also done real By a narrow 47-43 vote Dodd's Marvin Leath, D-Marlin; Tom Loeffler, harm to the fundamental national inter- R-Hunt; and Charles Stenholm, D- ests of the United States of America. amendment was tabled. Tower voted to table it. Ten senators did not vote, Stamford . "The American people do not support among them Bentsen of Texas. One of those who voted yes, Rep. this policy, and neither should the U.S. Henry Gonzalez of San Antonio, said Senate. It is a bankrupt policy, it is a April 5 in an Observer interview in his office violent policy, it is a failing policy, it in Washington: "I say the President is is an immoral policy, and it is an illegal Bentsen tossed one more vote to the havin' our boys die for Chiquita Banana. policy. It does not merit our support one Kennedy group. Sen. Carl Levin, D- That's United Fruit, now owned by day longer. .. . Mich. , proposed that none of the money Grace Industries." Charles Grace of that "The Contras are killing innocent could be used for covert assistance to firm headed Reagan's commission on men, women, and children in Nicara- anyone intending the violent overthrow government economy. gua. And everyone in this Chamber of the government of Nicaragua. This "The President is waging war in [who] votes more money for that killing lost 50-44 with Tower voting against it, Nicaragua," he said. "We've sur- will bear a heavy personal responsibil- Bentsen for. rounded Nicaragua with 30,000 mili- ity. For some here, the choice may be Then after a week of fighting off tary, on ships on both sides of the one of prudent politics or careful Kennedy's and Dodd's amendments the isthmus, in the air, and on the land. calculation; for campesinos in too many Senate voted on the bill, and President Either directly or indirectly, with the villages, it will be literally a life or death Reagan got what he wanted. The Senate CIA, every week we try to assassinate decision. Weeks and months from now, approved $61.75 million for military aid their leaders — that is, the Sandinistas'. they will live or die because of the to El Salvador, and $21 million in funds We try to blow up their public buildings. support we give or withhold today. for the Nicaraguan contras. The vote We mine their harbors. "Have we not finally learned that the was 76-19; both Texans voted to "We are the terrorists of the Carib- death of peasants is not the way to win approve the money. bean. They call us the Nazis of the a victory for either our principles or our Caribbean. They call us the terrorists. interests? .. . April 6 And," said Henry Gonzalez, "we are." "Some of our colleagues will say that, The Wall Street Journal broke the R. D. Revolution (Continued from Cover) At issue are 50 thousand acres of land expropriated by the Mexican govern- ment in 1951 to be used as vasos, flood control reservoirs. Los Vasos is located some 40 miles from the U.S. border, between Reynosa and Valle Hermosa. According to the federal Agrarian Reform Law and the terms of expropria- tion, the land at los Vasos, when abandoned by the government, was to be made available for distribution to small farmers in parcels of eight to 247 acres. In 1976, because of improved flood control, the vasos were drained and the land leased instead in large tracts to 45 large landowners. But some 400 landless campesinos also had designs on the land at los Vasos. In August of 1981 they began to press their claims with the Secretariat of Agriculture and Water Resources (SARH). When negotiations with the government agency slowed, 300 farm- workers and their families occupied one site, Palito Blanco. Within months they were evicted by 600 Mexican soldiers, their reed and tarpaper huts burned. Palito Blanco member in front of home in second (top) and third By all rights the movement should have died there. It was kept alive by settlements. the support of the United Mexican kilometers from the campsite and Palito campesino movement stand indicted. Socialist Party (PSUM). the CIOAC (an Blanco II was washed away. And the charge of criminal association, independent peasant union), and a 40 by which Gregorio Luna and Rodolfo percent farmworker unemployment rate. The third time, the campesinos built on a levee overlooking the land. As a Lira are held, without bail, is an And the uniquely Mexican vision of a indictment of the entire movement. return to communal land. compromise settlement, the government has recognized claims to 1,130 hectares The 140 farmworkers who partici- (2,791 acres) of land to be divided pated in the April 10 protest in the plaza among 407 petitioning families. But the in front of the state capitol traveled the bitter dispute between the large 160 miles to demand the release of Luna landholders and the campesinos, who and Lira. But Elpidio Tovar de la Cruz, are now demanding complete partition the PSUM state legislator who was with and distribution of the three vasos, Luna and Lira when they were arrested continues. All parties seem beyond in a Rio Bravo restaurant, said that he compromise. Recently the fight became doesn't expect the government to release even dirtier when 2,400 acres of Palito them soon. "The governor has closed Blanco sorghum was plowed under. the door to any political settlement," Campesinos claim that while the crops Tovar said. "He insists that the question were being destroyed, state police and is strictly judicial and must be resolved "paramilitaries" stood by to protect in the courts. And that can be a slow equipment and operators employed by process." Watering hole, Palito Blanco I. the growers. The newly-certified minority parties A 50-year-old Palito Blanco grand- of the left have universally endorsed the By February of 1982 a second shanty- mother, who turned out for an April 10 land struggles of campesinos now town was built a few kilometers from protest march in Ciudad Victoria, de- occurring in every state in the Mexican the original site. Some 2,500 acres were scribed the March 15 ravaging of the Republic. It is by these issues that they planted in sorghum and maize, and, after sorghum fields as "barbaric and unfor- have won their minority seats. And a 7 million peso settlement with the givable." "It was this high," she said, though their minority status in legislative recognized tenants, the grain was pointing to her hem, "and all ruined. chambers has cast them in the mold of harvested. Then, on August 2 of that To burn, to destroy food in the field, personal-privilege and point-of-order year, a heavy equipment owner em- when so many are hungry, they [the carpers, they have earned their positions ployed by SARH opened a levee two large landholders] are the criminals." as leaders in the land rights movement. Yet, while the large landholders enjoy The only elected officials to meet with Palito Blanco protestors on April 10 Louis Dubose is a freelance writer living the protection and at times what seems were Tovar and Socialist Worker Party in Austin. the support of the state, leaders of the THE TEXAS OBSERVER 7 delictuosa [criminal association] — Meanwhile the large landholders are that's a charge reserved for rateros when digging in and cultivating their contacts they get together to rob or assault with the dominant Institutional Party of someone. And despojar [plunder] — the Revolution (PRI). As they see it, that's their crime, not ours. We are the government made a commitment to obeying the law." them when the land was leased in 1976. Lira's brother, Ubaldo, a visitor in They have made large investments in the prison, raises the issue of another improving and cultivating this land, and crime, a two-year-old unsolved homi- they are not inclined to walk away from cide. Juan Cervantes, he explains, a land it. The terms of this conflict are as old reform leader from Periquitos, 25 as the post-Cortesian history of Mexico. kilometers from Reynosa, was shot to death for his part in a similar struggle. He had won from the government a concession of 10 hectare tracts for campesinos, and, as he left his house to attend a meeting to petition for 20 Ciudad Victoria rally, 1984. hectare allotments, he was shot three times. "We have been told by state legislator Jose Rodrigo Perez. Both investigators that evidence is not suffi- spoke before the protestors, denouncing cient to prosecute the landowner who the government's repressive tactics and hired his assassin. They have even told urging the campesinos to continue their us the killer's alias and the name of the

fight. Both argued for the release of man who hired him," Ubaldo Rivera e Luna and Lira. said. u

For the two imprisoned organizers, Gregorio Luna is a recent PSUM Pog the Matamoros municipal jail is their candidate for the state legislature. A third stop in more than a month behind smaller, darker, and more somber man, Alan bars. They were first detained in the he is not as buoyant as Rodolfo Lira. by state penitentiary in Ciudad Victoria, The government's charges, he explains, tos then moved twice. are not so important. "We are in jail Pho Gregorio Luna addressing 1982 rally. Rodolfo Lira Rivera is a large bear because we constitute a danger for the of a man, who appears 10 years older big landholders." Luna has been offered than his 54 years. Dressed in a western 400 hectares for himself, by a SARH shirt, slacks, boots, he seems almost too official, with the understanding that he To resolve the dispute, commissions comfortable in the visiting room of the retire from the struggle. At 40 he's not have been appointed and mediators special prisoners section of the inclined to retire, and as for the question called in, but after three years both the Matamoros jail. The terms of his of land distribution — "well, we want state and federal government seem to confinement, he explains, are generous. cheese for everyone." Similar offers be consolidating their opposition to the have been made to Lira. Both say that The municipal president has been in to Palito Blanco campesinos. When, on they will not be bought out. check on the two prisoners; the meals March 14, some 1,000 urban squatters brought in by local PSUM activists are "We haven't been compromised nor seized 120 acres of land in Reynosa, excellent. "All I lack is my freedom," intimidated," states Lira. "When we they were routed by police. The land he says. "It's not the imprisonment," leave here it will be to resume the on the south side of the city belongs to Lira says, "but the charges. Asociacion struggle." former Reynosa Mayor Ernesto Gomez Lira, who, according to the PSUM weekly an' es, also holds title to a large tract of land at los Vasos. The Reynosa site was cleared within hours of its occupation, and police burned the shacks and building material belonging to the squatters. The quick resolution of the illegal occupation of Gomez Lira's Reynosa property might now look good to the government in light of the results of the protracted struggle with the peasants of Palito Blanco. But, ultimately, the Mexican govern- ment is going to have to come to terms with its agrarian land reform laws and the hundreds of thousands of campesinos who exist at the margin of their country's economic life waiting for their parcela or ejido (communal farm). It was against just such "living on your knees" that Emiliano Zapata began a Palito Blanco II: .first sorghum harvest, 1982. revolution in the South. ❑ 8 MAY 4, 1984 The Military Presence in San Antonio

By Nina Butts

San Antonio Presidential candidates start talking the oldest continuously active U.S. Air Force base. Its nondescript cinderblock "San Antonio has always been a about cutting military spending people military town. Ever since I can remem- get very nervous around here. Those buildings are interrupted by white ber. We have all those bases. In case who talk about a strong defense are mission-style buildings shaded by elm of nuclear war we'd probably be one popular. Reagan is popular. Tower is trees. of the first ones to get hit. It goes along very strong here." "We have a saying in Spanish," said with having those bases. San Antonio No major spending cut has ever been San Antonio City Council member has always depended on the bases for inflicted on San Antonio's military Maria Berriozabal, "Que no se acabe jobs." bases, but San Antonians still speak Kelly: Let Kelly never end." Because Jose Siller, an activist in Communities painfully of the closing in 1966 of the Kelly is one of the five Air Force Organized for Public Service (COPS) Atomic Energy Commission Medina Logistics Centers, in charge of part of the Air Force's maintenance, purchas- and an employee for 32 years at Kelly facility in nearby Medina County. Only ing, and distribution needs, it hires far Air Force Base, sat in a desk chair at 700 people worked there, and the AEC the downtown office of COPS. It was shut Medina when its task — final more civilian workers than most military nearly 5 p.m., and Siller had come assembly of nuclear weapons — was bases. Kelly has 17,000 civilian employ- straight from work to the COPS office shifted to the Pantex plant in Amarillo. ees and only 4,000 military personnel. to get ready for a meeting that night. "Any fluctuation [in military spending] The other bases in San Antonio com- is devastating for our community," bined have 10,000 civilian workers. San "I volunteered for the Air Force in Hernandez said. "When Medina was Antonio's population is 53% Mexican 1948," Siller said. "Got out in 1952. closed all of a sudden all of that money American; Kelly's workers are 52% I came out and filed my application at spent in the city was cut off." Mexican American. Kelly. I was only out a month when I started to work there." Siller raised a The military bases put $2.3 billion a "Kelly Air Force Base — that's my family of 12 on the typist's salary he year in federal funds into San Antonio constituency," Berriozabal said. ". . earns at the Air Force base. "I feel and crisscross the city. Near the center I'm a strong supporter of the nuclear myself to be lucky to have that job at of town is Fort Sam Houston, an Army freeze. I think we're going to do a disappearing act if we don't watch it. Kelly." medical training center, hospital, and burn clinic. Just outside of town, to the I'm very concerned . . . the Mexican San Antonio is a city of 833,000. The east, is Randolph Air Force Base, a American — that's the farthest thing federal government supports directly school for officers. On the south side from their minds. They're worried about and indirectly about half this population is Brooks Air Force Base, called the chuckholes and dropping out of the — the soldiers and civilian workers at "aeromedical, arm" of the Air Force. eighth grade." San Antonio's five military bases and Brooks is a medical training and re- Berriozabal explained the significance four other Defense Department facil- search center that tests, among other of the jobs at Kelly. "Many of my ities, the retired military, the private things, the effect on the human body constituents and many Hispanics in San sector workers whose businesses serve of flying. Antonio work for the federal service and military employees, and the families of If you drive southwest out of central they started working — our men mostly all those people. San Antonio on U.S. Highway 90, the — in civil service when they came from "One way of looking at it," said San city quickly fans out in cookie-cutter the Second World War. And that was Antonio peace activist and writer John subdivisions, but then a set of enormous a new beginning economically for Hackett, "is that the whole city is a huge airplane hangars appears — Kelly Air Hispanics in San Antonio. Before that military base with pockets of civilian Force Base, and you come to exit signs time they were working on the farms. economy." for Kelly and Lackland bases. These two "That has created a sizeable middle "Whether people like or approve of bases form the largest military commu- class in San Antonio — the economic the kind of impact the military has had nity in San Antonio. stability that the bases provided. They in San Antonio — at this point that's At Lackland every recruit in the U.S. provided for the first time in the history a moot question," Sonia Hernandez, the Air Force receives six weeks of basic of many families a stable income. When president of COPS, asserted. "We are training. About 70,000 people a year you were out with the crops or working dependent on it . . . so much that if there jump hurdles and swing across cement in menial work, pecan shelling or were any major cuts the whole city ponds on ropes and learn to march in whatever, that was not stable employ- would go into a state of shock. Any time time with other recruits there. Lackland ment. also trains officers, military police, and "Right now you have men . . . who guard dogs, and teaches English to are first generation retirees among This is the fourth in a series of articles foreign military personnel. The base has Hispanics. Our people never retired by Nina Butts examining Texas' role in 2,000 civilian and 18,000 military before; you worked the fields until you the military-industrial complex. The personnel. couldn't. And now there's retirement series is funded by a Carey McWilliams Next door to Lackland is Kelly Air and there's pay . . . you are able to send Fellowship from the Nation Institute. Force Base. Opened in 1917, Kelly is your children to high school, you are THE TEXAS OBSERVER 9 able to send your children to college, you are able to put food on the table, clothing, you are able to buy a house, you could tackle a mortgage because you had stable pay." The task at Kelly Air Force Base is keeping the huge Lockheed C-5 cargo plane at what the Air Force calls "constant readiness." The number of C- 5s has increased in recent years because the Rapid Deployment Force wants to be able to use them to fly troops to places where American forces are not sta- The final tioned. At Kelly, in 600 buildings, the assembly C-5s are overhauled, repaired, modi- of all U.S. nu- fied, and repainted. Kelly also does clear weapons takes some work on B-52 nuclear bombers and place in the Texas Panhandle. City Councilwoman Maria Berriozabal Houston has more oil company C-130 cargo planes, buys and supplies headquarters than any other city in all of the fuel for Air Force aircraft, "We have a retired military who are the world. The whole state reeks of and buys other Air Force parts and basically very conservative," William Sunbelt boosters, strident anti- supplies. At Kelly is the headquarters Sinkin, the president of Texas Bank and unionists, political hucksters, and of Special. Weapons, which means a longtime Democratic party activist, new industry and money. nuclear weapons. Kelly keeps track of said. "They exercise a very leavening the Air Force's nuclear weapons stock- conservative influence on the political THIS IS THE LOOK OF pile. "People have to realize that it's constituency. They're not mean — TEXAS TODAY and the Texas a deterrent and so forth," Kelly spokes- they're just conservative." Observer has its independent eye man A. D. McCall Jr. said about the "They vote against us all the time," on all of it. We offer the latest in special weapons. According to McCall, liberal activist Kathleen Voight said of corporate scams and political scan- no nuclear weapons are deployed at the retired military. "That's the reason dals as well as articles on those Kelly, but the Center for Defense Henry B. Gonzalez couldn't be against who have other, and more humane, Information in Washington, D.C. , re- the Vietnam War. . . . That's the reason visions of what our state can be. ports that nuclear weapons are kept we couldn't get our nuclear freeze Become an Observer subscriber to- there. . day, order a gift for a friend, or in- through. Some of the City Council struct us to enter a library subscrip- Kelly was in charge of purchasing members said, 'I just couldn't afford to tion under your patronage. Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. do that [support the freeze]. That's "We bought it — we bought all of it where my meat comes from.' " (In 1982 and sent it to Vietnam, " McCall said. a nuclear freeze resolution failed to get "It was used for defoliation of the the necessary support to be brought to jungles to see the target. It was a pure a vote by the San Antonio City Council.) Send the Observer to — and simple defoliant. You had to find Three U.S. Congress members have the troops." districts that include parts of San name "From a superficial standpoint," Antonio: Tom Loeffler, Abraham Kazen, and Henry B. Gonzalez. Loeffler Maury Maverick Jr., a San Antonio and Kazen consistently vote for military address lawyer and newspaper columnist said, spending and actions and have been "the bases aren't as polluting as the awarded 100% ratings by the ultracon- chemical companies in Houston. But city state zip servative American Security Council. you see thousands and thousands of civil service workers — normally liberal Gonzalez, whose district lies entirely within San Antonio, has voted for the Democrats — who are on the payroll ❑ this subscription is for myself B-1 nuclear bomber and anti-satellite of making war. New Deal Democrats ❑ gift'subscription; send card in my name weapons but against money for the did that, made a civilian middle class $20 enclosed for a one-year subscription Missile Experimental (MX), chemical ❑ that makes its living off the military. bill me for $20 weapons, and covert aid to Nicaraguan ❑ We're all caught up in it." rebels. Besides the people now employed on My name & address (if different) , There are many side effects caused by the bases, 30,000 retired military people the large presence of retired military and 19,000 retired civil service workers personnel. One is described by COPS name and their dependents live in San Anto- president Sonia Hernandez: "When you nio. have a lot of retired military living in address "Military people retire and stay your area, they take up jobs and are here," said James Sandifer, a spokes- willing to settle for less — fewer

city state zip man for Lackland and an Air Force benefits, lower wages, because they retiree. "The merchants are good to us. have their retirement pension. Then We're only five hours away from the everyone else has to live off that Cowboys, three hours from the Oilers. standard, and that's an extremely low THE TEXAS OBSERVER The Gunslingers are here. We're two standard. They retire very young — say 600 W. 7th, Austin, Texas 78701 hours from the coast. The only thing somebody goes into the military at 19 you can't do is snow ski." — puts in 20 years — 39 is not real 10 MAY 4, 1984

old to find a job as an executive or a leaving the bases." I asked Siller if he principal in a school district." would prefer a government job in a "We've hired two or three retired peacetime pursuit. "Oh yes," he said. colonels," Texas Bank president Sinkin "I'd be willing to change." confirmed, "and found them very good But for the present the dependency organizational people." remains. "If there's any city that's Every year the San Antonio Chamber targeted by the U.S.S.R., it's San of Commerce sends a mission to Antonio," said Hernandez, "precisely Washington, D.C., to protect San because of the military bases, so it's Antonio's military base funding. This hard to keep it out of your mind. But the day-to-day needs of our facilities year, in March, the pilgrims included

l are the thing that we're most concerned

Maria Berriozabal and County Judge ie Leo Mendoza. They hosted receptions about, and that's what we deal with. Dan

Otherwise we would be paralyzed.

in Washington for the Joint Chiefs of ia Staff and Senator John Tower. ic "One thing about COPS," she contin- Al ued, "is that we're very realistic about

John Miller, a Mennonite who staffs by those arenas where we can have an to the St. Paul's Square Peace Center, in influence and that's what we stick to. an old drugstore near downtown, said, Pho COPS President Sonia Hernandez If we thought we could really make a "The general public who work on the difference, we would jump into the bases as civilians are really hesitant to sure people will look for jobs other nuclear freeze thing and expect to see get involved with peace work. They places than the military. People will be results." 1=1 wonder what it would mean for their jobs. The whole idea of a need for a `strong defense' permeates the city.... . I don't think the idea's been accepted that because the military is here we're more insecure than secure. In case of a nuclear attack, we'd be a target. "Pastors have church members who A Pilgrimage are very connected to the military, so they are less free to speak their minds. There are some interdenominational pastoral groups that have military to Greenham Common chaplains and therefore the peace stuff always gets downplayed." Peace activism in San Antonio, Miller By Beverly Burris said, has included the operation of the peace center, work with the Democratic party on sending freeze supporters to the county and state party conventions, a Greenham Common, England This was Mothers' Day in England, speakers' bureau, and the organizing of April 1, 1984 they reminded me, and it promised to a demonstration when El Salvador's be a special celebration at the women's president came to a San Antonio lunch- T WAS a perfectly clear morning in camp. Also, the Thatcher government eon with Mayor Henry Cisneros and London, sufficiently atypical to had recently been making statements to others. / raise spirits considerably. As I the effect that the peace camp must be made my way by subway, train, and bus "If San Antonio has maintained a out of the area by April 2, giving as towards Greenham Common, I felt as somewhat healthy [economic] base," an excuse their alleged need to widen excited as my fellow Sunday Berriozabal concluded, "it was because the road to the missile base. Today, a the military was present." But San excursionists, but more pensive. This special show of solidarity was expected. journey felt like a solitary pilgrimage, Antonians speak with hope about getting In September, 1981, fifteen or twenty as if I were approaching world head- off the military dole. "There is a women had marched from Cardiff in quarters of the peace movement. widening of the base of San Antonio's Wales to Greenham Common to protest economic activity where we're not really As I got on the bus to Newbury, the the announced installation of Cruise dependent on the military for our nearest town to Greenham, four young missiles there. Upon arriving in survival," Sinkin observed. "In the last British women decorated with peace Greenham, the women decided to stay. ten years," said Hernandez, "industry buttons caught my eye. Fellow pilgrims. Supporters came with tents and blankets, moving in and the whole selling of San With some trepidation derived from and the camp was born. It has lasted, Antonio as a sunbelt city has changed guilt over my nationality, I introduced despite considerable harassment from the focus. There is more regular private myself. They welcomed me warmly into both the government and from local sector business coming in." San their midst, and we began a conversation residents, for two-and-one-half years. Antonians speak of new jobs in electron- that was to last for hours. At least two opposition groups have ics, medical research, and the import- been formed: RAGE, or Residents export business. Beverly Burris is an assistant profes- Against the Greenham Encampment, "Since my lifetime, Kelly has been sor of sociology at Trinity University in and Women for Defense. Local vigilante the principal employment office," Jose San Antonio. Greenham Common Peace squads have attacked the camp during Siller said. "San Antonio is going Camp can be addressed c/o Newbury, the night, throwing animal blood and through a change right now. . . . I'm Berkshire/ENGLAND. excrement on it. Repeated evictions and THE TEXAS OBSERVER 11 the legendary arrests have been to no avail and seem covered with pieces of plastic), which to have fueled the determination of the the women started using after their women to maintain the camp. original tents were ruled illegal. Every- RAW DEAL As we arrived in Newbury and began thing floated in a sea of mud. Immedi- Steaks, Chops, Chicken the four-mile walk to the camp, I saw ately I was struck by the very heavy open lunch and evenings 605 Sabine, Austin No Reservations evidence of the local opposition: a sign fortifications of the base. Not only was in front of a pub proclaimed that women there a ten-foot metal fence topped with from the peace camp, as well as "any barbed wire, but inside the fence I persons supporting the views of this counted eight rolls of barbed wire, some camp," were not welcome on the of it electrified. Many police and premises. military personnel were in evidence. It As we walked through the Berkshire felt like war — or the gate to a countryside, I asked about the effect of concentration camp. the installation of the missiles last fall And yet, outside the fence there were on the camp. Cheryl, who had been throngs of people — about 300 in all, arrested at Greenham the day after the including many children. Occasionally installation, told me that the missiles I heard the clear soprano tones of arrived on her birthday — November women singing, and caught fragments 14. They were supposed to arrive the of lyrics: following day, a fact leaked to the press by Sarah Tisdale, recently given a six- Stand up, women make a choice, month prison term for this action. When Create a world without nuclear death. Cheryl heard on the radio that the All together we are strong, installation had occurred, she joined Break the nuclear chain. hundreds of people, mostly women, at and: Greenham Common for a massive protest. 140 people were arrested that We don't want your Cruise, day for civil disobedience — blocking We have life to lose, the road. "So many were arrested that It's not too late to choose, FROZEN MARGARITA we wouldn't fit in the police vans — Chant down Greenham. IRISH COFFEE they had to bring in a special bus to We won't live in fear, take us to London. They kept us in an We'll always be here, 9 AM UNTIL MIDNIGHT empty warehouse, and it was very cold, Until the skies are clear, HOT DOGS • HAMBURGERS but we huddled together and sang songs Chant down Greenham. STEAKS • CHICKEN to keep warm." According to Cheryl, the installation Many of the visitors had brought of the missiles has made the women even bunches of daffodils and had woven more determined to stay. "Originally some of them into the fence underneath they pledged to stay so as to prevent the barbed wire. Signs were every- the coming of the missiles; now they've where; one large sign read "Evict pledged to stay until the missiles are Cruise, not the Camp." Another large removed. The evictions won't work. one, facing the main road, said simply, There is no way that they can get rid "We Are Staying." A smaller one on of the camp because the women will just the fence proclaimed, "For_ every keep coming back." woman evicted, 20 more will come." Another woman, Allison, told me that What was remarkable was the dra- there were seven gates, with an encamp- matic juxtaposition of camp and base. ment at every gate. "Despite the bad The women of the camp did not seem RESTAURANT press that the women usually get, joyful; rather, there was a solemn 511 RIVERWALK support for them is unbelievably strong. dignity to their demeanor. But they ACROSS FROM KANGAROO COURT People bring firewood and food, and exuded a quiet hopefulness and an SAN ANTONIO. TEXAS checks come in the mail every day." affirmative spirit, whereas the men from 225-4098 Money is needed not only to support the base, behind their nets of barbed the camp but to pay eviction fines. As wire, looked deadly serious. we talked, a bus full of women drove Ronnie Dugger: "Heard's accounts One woman spoke to me of the by us and honked; in its rear window importance she attributed to the U.S. of the Bees in hiding are the pure gold was a sign saying "Women for Peace." of real history." disarmament movement. "It's limited By this time we were almost at Main Bryan Woolley (Dallas Times what we here in Europe can do. The Gate (the other gates have been named U.S. peace movement is so crucial, Herald): "It ought to be right beside by the women for the colors of the the Alamo books." since the U.S. is such a powerful rainbow: Orange, Red, Purple, Violet, country and represents one-half of the "The Miracle of the KILLER BEES: Blue, Green). We passed a small sign super power conflict. It's inspiring to 12 Senators Who Changed which said "Earth, our only home" and us that there are people in the U.S. who Texas Politics" carried a women's symbol and a peace oppose some of its policies and that they by Robert Heard symbol. are making some headway." Honey Hill Publishing Co. 1022 Bonham Terrace, Austin, Texas 78704 Finally we arrived at Main Gate. "I think we all feel here that the more $7.95 plus $1.03 tax and shipping There were about twenty very primitive it's planned for and the more convoys tents (called "benders" — tree branches that come, the more certain it is to

12 MAY 4, 1984 happen," another woman told me. "The with a group of soldiers. One told me hope. planning has now advanced to such a of a special demonstration for the degree that deterrence doesn't seem to elderly, which was planned some time be the main principle. The army person- in May at Greenham, and also of her Postscript: On April 4 at dawn, more nel have all been issued radiation suits, work in the U.K. Freeze Campaign, a than 300 policemen moved into the so they think they'll be all right. And recent import from the U.S. The other women's camp at Main Gate. They gave it seems to me that some of them are woman told me of a conversation she'd the sleeping women five minutes to almost wanting it to happen — to justify had with a young soldier. " 'We're just vacate the area and then destroyed all all of this planning." here doing our jobs.' he said, 'but you "benders" and cleared all remaining Some of the military personnel were women are doing a more important job camp facilities. A fence was set up to chatting with women through the fence, — for all of us, our families and our indicate the area claimed by the Ministry an unprecedented thawing of a previ- children's children.' " of Transport. More than 30 women were ously hostile stance, according to some The emotional climax of the afternoon arrested for passive resistance. women. One young soldier spoke of his came when a police van turned off the This massive eviction has sparked belief that "everything will turn out all main road and headed towards the protests throughout the United King- right in the end," and he went on to entrance to the base. About 150 women dom, including a large demonstration say that "you can't be so afraid of streamed into the road and blocked the the following day at Leicester Square things, or else you'd be afraid to cross entrance. After a 30 minute stalemate, in London, where more people were the street, wouldn't you?" I drifted away during which the women sang, locked arrested. as one woman began to explain to him arms, and sat down in the road, the van By April 5, nearly 100 women had the difference she saw between the backed out in the driveway. This was returned to Greenham, setting up new danger of nuclear war and the danger taken as a symbolic victory and was camps on common land adjacent to the of crossing the street. greeted with cheers, dancing, and various gates. The women have reiter- I spoke with two women in their livelier songs. ated their determination to maintain the seventies — one wearing a "Quakers for After being at Greenham Common, camps until the Cruise missiles are Peace" button — who had been chatting I can understand how one might feel removed. ❑ UT Endowment Raises Question of Priorities By John Schwartz

Austin. the university's oil money from con- class" status. Physics graduate student National attention was focused on the struction to salary supplements — or, Lincoln Stoller remarks, "Are they University of Texas at Austin on April as present Regents chairman Jon New- more concerned with proving they are 16 as the school's president, Peter ton has said, "brains over bricks." And number one than with becoming a good Flawn, announced the creation of thirty- it's possible that former Regents chair- school? To be number one, you just have two $1 million endowed faculty chairs man, the late Frank Erwin, Jr., wouldn't to be recognized — to be a good school in the fields of science and engineering. disapprove of the shift, as long as the is something else." An anonymous donor's $8 million gift money didn't go to the "wrong" The story behind the most recent had been matched by $8 million in professors, like troublemakers in the endowment might have come from a donations from foundations, and that Arts and Sciences. And, predictably novel by John Le Carre. Peter sum was in turn matched with $16 enough, the lion's share of endowments O'Donald, a former chairman of the million by the UT Board of Regents.The have gone to business, the sciences, and Texas Republican Party (and not a UT snowballing gift raises the number of engineering. alumnus), approached Flawn late in endowed chairs at UT from eighteen to In some corners, the news was 1983 with a proposal: he would provide fifty. greeted with scorn. "Here we go again, up to $8 million in $1 million increments The new grant is the largest of many trying to buy excellence with Texas- for endowed faculty chairs if UT could the University of Texas has received in sized bucks," lamented history profes- find another donor to match the gift. conjunction with the celebration of its sor Howard Miller. Indeed, Texas now Thanks to a new program at UT, such 100th birthday this year and is a major boasts 700 endowed faculty positions, donations are also matched by university boost in UT's attempt to pull itself into most of which were donated in connec- funds, and so the donor would in effect the top rank of education by luring tion with the Centennial. Beyond the be giving three dollars for every one world-renowned scholars to Austin. extravaganza, a new generation of actually donated. With regents' ap- academic leadership is changing the way proval, Flawn quietly approached sev- The current generation of UT Regents eral Texas foundations and had pledges has decided to shift the orientation of the Lone Star State looks at its flagship university. UT is shaking off old goals for $8 million within three months. John Schwartz is a UT law student and of regional superiority and is aiming for After clearing the final plan with the freelance journalist living in Austin. what is commonly referred to as "world regents, Flawn announced the gift. "It THE TEXAS OBSERVER 13 was very exciting," Flawn recalls. "It's Austin. The consortium of electronics still difficult to believe it's all put firms, an attempt to beat Japan in the together." race to develop a "fifth generation" UT's burgeoning endowment pro- computer, was swayed by an aggressive gram would not have been possible campaign by Texas politicians and the without an underlying change in the way university to bring it to Texas; to Texas funds its major universities. Like sweeten the pot, UT made commitments many other state schools, UT derives of $5 million worth of equipment, space much of its income from an early land at UT's Balcones Research Center, and grant. Income from the land flows into $15 million worth of faculty an untouchable trust, the Permanent endowments to the company. University Fund (PUF); interest and By April, there were 700 endowed BEHIND THE TARPON INN other income from the PUF trust was positions at the University of Texas at PORT ARANSAS — OPEN DAILY called the Available University Fund Austin. The endowments took off for (AUF) and was divided between two several reasons. Besides the tax advan- (512) 749-5555 schools, UT (which receives two thirds) tages, donors also appreciated the ability and Texas A&M University (which to "leverage" their donations with AUF receives the other third). funds. Neal Spelce, an Austin public The similarity to other land grant relations consultant instrumental in the colleges ends there because the arid MCC courtship, says donors are at- land given to the school by tracted to "the strong pull of perpetual the legislature happened to cover vast memorialization. . . . If I put up a ginnys' pools of oil. As of August 1983, the million, I can get two chairs named for COPYING SERVICE PUF stood at more than $1.9 billion, me instead of one. There's some magic the world's largest endowment. AUF in that." Copying • Binding income for 1983 was more than $167 The first success story in UT's search Printing • Color Copying million. for "world class" faculty was in Graphics •Word Processing Though this endowment made the physics: first with superstars John University of Texas rich, its riches were Wheeler and Ilya Prigogine, then in 1981, Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg, Austin • Lubbock • Son Marcos narrowly constrained. The state legisla- ture restricted the AUF to pay for whose $1 million chair enabled him to buildings and supplies and reserved the hire his own theoretical physics group realm of academic salaries for itself. UT and bring it into UT. More recently the developed the finest physical facilities university announced that it had lassoed .x)01 and Associates money could buy but trailed major Edsger Dijkstra, an internationally re- E 502 W. 15th Street universities in faculty salaries. UT nowned computer scientist from the Austin, Texas 78701 REALTOR`"' administrators, regents, and alumni tried Netherlands. Other coups are announced Representing all types of properties to find a way to divert AUF monies to every few weeks. in Austin and Central Texas Interesting & unusual property a specialty supplement faculty incomes. Holders of faculty endowments nego- 477-3651 UT strategists hit on a program based tiate the uses of the funds with the school on the University of Virginia's matching administration. Many supplement their fund program, in which income from appropriated salaries from the endow- endowed positions was matched with ment and have money left over to help university funds. UT decided to take the hire researchers. program a step further and use its Ideally, the star system has what considerable AUF to match the principal Flawn calls a "ripple effect" on a of endowments. Such an idea had been school: the presence of famous profes- Witat's discussed for several years but had never sors will attract talented younger faculty It cW r About? found a regents board amenable to and students to the school. Weinberg is change. Jon Newton, the youngest a case in point. Flawn believes the Parisian Charm. Omelette & appointee to the board and, at 42, its recruits for endowments should interact Champagne Breakfast. Beautiful youngest chairman, helped devise and with the campus: "We don't want to Crepes. Afternoon Cocktails. drum up support for the proposal, and stuff them and put them in glass Gallant Waiters. Delicious the leadership of the state legislature cabinets." Quiche. Evening Romance. helped to slip quietly a twelve-word Continental Steaks. Mysterious Some faculty and students, however, rider to the 1981 appropriations bill to are not so happy with the endowment Women. Famous Pastries. authorize the change. Each one of those Cognac & Midnight Rendezvous. program. Most of the donors are words has been worth millions to the business people and businesses, and In short, it's about everything University. their endowment choices favor the a great European style The Centennial celebration attracted business school, engineering, and the restaurant is all about. attention to the endowment program, sciences to the exclusion of the liberal and the money began rolling in. Soon arts, fine arts, and education schools. ksh ovr . other events entered the picture, and Critics of the program point out the university officials began to talk of disparity that already existed among "synergy." The most visible of these those areas, complaining that the endow- Cafe events was the decision of Microelec- 310 East 6th St. ment program merely widens the gap. Austin, Texas tronics and Computer Technology Cor- One critic, seeing a pattern of neglect poration (MCC) to open its doors in of the liberal arts, says UT "has lost its soul as a University . . . I'm not going to teach at the MIT of the Southwest. If I'd wanted to teach at MIT, I'd have tried to get a job at MIT." The dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Robert King, agrees that his school has fallen behind in endowments, but tt he is not complaining. King has seen the liberal arts departments go from Dermo

$300,000 for 3 endowed chairs in 1975 Mc to one chair and 4 professorships in 1979 ‘ ilici Joe to a present total of 70 endowed . ...-21.4.,...... by

positions worth $15 million dollars. ing y ,s2z5 [ 1., • "There's no question the professional v N 1),0L'I' • : A' "R : ..,•-AP"k.:::::S M ,;',,`: .::::" ,FRIST.I'.':,..-,.A-z.:;:•.;:::::: schools have gotten more than we have; Draw on the other hand, it has made it possible for me to raise money in a way that see how undergraduates have suffered." who has a significant part of his or her I would not have dreamed possible a Students have their own complaints work still ahead. We like to think the few years ago." about the endowment program and the people we will attract will earn their King sees the disparity problems as centennial celebration — in a 48,000 Nobel Prizes here. . . . One thing we're short-lived. In their April meeting, the student body, many of them feel ne- not going to be is precipitous." regents decided that, after August of this glected by the university. In the graduate The endowment controversy takes year, they — not the donors — will programs like physics, for those students place in the context of a larger academic determine where the matching funds will not fortunate enough to hitch their debate over the goals of higher educa- go. "I think what you're seeing here wagons to a star, there is disappoint- tion. During the 1960s, students and is a feeling that we may be becoming ment: (One graduate student called such faculty argued with administrations over the Cal Tech of the Southwest or the students "driftwood.") Post-Doctoral whether the universities were being "co- MIT of the Southwest," King said. "We student Tony Rothman says that it is opted" into a military-industrial-educa- want to be more than that — we want difficult to get time with the famous tional complex. The focus has shifted to be the Harvard or Yale of the faculty;. not only are they popular, 'since then, and financially-pressed uni- Southwest. You can't do that if you're "superstars are.always jetting around the versities now welcome the often lucra- weak in the liberal arts." He is so certain world." He suggests that a school might tive alliance with business and govern- that UT will now turn its energies to do better to find "somebody a little less ment. The liaison is more commonly his college that he has been drawing up known but. who will be around more." called a "partnership" today. an ambitious wish list. UT courts promising students in the Although the arguments against close same way that it pursues star professors. relations' with business are heard less ESPITE KING'S optimism for National Merit semifinalists are invited often, they are no less vehement than the future, UT present is not to Austin for events like the Honors before. English faculty member James D paradise for faculty without Colloquium; where they come into Sledd, an agitator for the cause of endowments. Faculty salaries, even with contact with famous professors like John undergraduates, says the endowment recent legislated pay raises, rank only Wheeler. Texas spent $150, 1000 last year program is "a scandal . . . The Univer- slightly above average in relation to for the colloquium, including $10,750 sity of Texas is being stolen from the other respected public institutions. Also, for a riverboat breakfast. This and other people of Texas. They're not interested the university is not generous with programs gave . UT the highest number in educating the children of ordinary perquisites that can make up for a of incoming national merit scholars in Texans — they are interested in making disappointing salary: UT has a sabbati- the nation this year, after Harvard. But a research and technological institute for cal program on paper, but it has never a graduate student complains, "You the benefit of Texas money. They don't been adequately funded. Furthermore, don't necessarily have the best education want to teach ordinary undergraduates. some faculty complain that their benefits just because you have attracted the best They're interested in graduate studies have been transferred into the students — the most you can say is that and whiz kids." superstar/MCC funds. you didn't ruin them." Undergraduate Other faculty members, such as Professor Howard Miller says that the biology major Mike Hiller says that the Miller and philosophy professor. Robert university's biggest mistake is neglect- university could spend more money to Solomon, view the endowments as ing talented faculty members recruited serve the needs of students once they good, but see crises lurking. Solomon within the last eight years, when the get to UT. "They're not very committed fears that "it's not just an emphasis on near-gridlock in academic positions to addressing our concerns because endowment — the emphasis is to study made it possible for UT to hire some we're a transient group. Every four `practical' courses, which they mistake of the best young minds at low salaries. years we leave and take our problems to mean the exclusion of 'impractical' Though many of these scholars have with us . . . They're working on it, but concerns, and they come out not proved themselves, the salaries have it should have been done already. knowing anything." Solomon occasion- stayed low. Miller says those teachers The actual effects of UT's endowment ally gives his students a "culture are becoming discouraged. "While program and the star system it creates survey," listing names and asking if the we're going out hiring the enormous have yet to be felt. Many positions have students recognize them. "Some of my salaries, we're losing the seed corn." not been filled,, and will not be for some students didn't know who Hitler was," He notes that many of the incoming stars time. "The hard part now begins," says Solomon. "Half of them didn't don't teach undergraduates and warns, Flavin says, "identifying these people know Darwin; one third didn't know "Five years from now, come back and and developing the strategies to bring Socrates. And this was a Philosophy them here. The trick is to find somebody class!"

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 15 The University of Texas has one As UT passes its hundredth year, here for years and years and years. factor in its favor that has nothing to there is promise that many of the Gosh, it's gonna be exciting." do with all-star faculty. The many problems inherent in this spurt might Undergraduate student Mike Hiller, prospective UT students don't know become less burdensome. Still, the while critical of university policies, about stars or ripple effects. The broader issues of universities being co- students come to UT because it is opted might make any adjustments and comments, "There's really not a better place. I wouldn't have chosen any place inexpensive — a year's tuition is less balancing merely pyrrhic victories. If else — in spite of the problems." than $700. A Yale graduate who is now so, those problems are not just Texas' applying to the UT graduate school of problems but show the way to a national As good or bad as one might think computer science says, "I guess money crisis in education of which the Texas the situation is, it's probably about to is the number one factor." Mark Yudof, story is a part. As time goes by, more take a turn for the worse. Despite his Associate Dean of the Law School, says faculty positions in more departments enlightened leadership, Regents' Chair- that UT offers its students "more bang will be endowed, and a. better balance man Jon Newton is almost certain not for the buck." will be sought in order to distribute the to be reappointed by Mark White. good effects and dilute the bad. The Newton was, after all, a Clements Many at UT feel UT's greatest Board of Regents and especially Chair- appointee. The most likely candidate for impediment is its size. King admits, man Newton have shown sensitivity to the chairman's post after Newton is "There's no way we can in any literal the pitfalls of the latest chapter of UT's White's good friend and fundraiser, way be the 'Harvard of the Southwest.' wealth, from faculty indignation over Robert Baldwin. This is the kind of We've got too many students." King unequal distribution of grants to a firm political football playing that has gotten suggests instead that his college can — and novel for UT — commitment to UT into trouble throughout its past offer honors programs for people who academic freedom. Speaking of the hundred years. It's too much to hope' want something beyond the normal board's orientation, Chairman Newton that Mark White would rise above the degree and are willing to work hard for says, "This will change significantly the muddle and do what's right for the uni- it. good old boy attitudes that have existed versity.

• POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE •

v The first phase of a Texas Hispanic contrary. Reporter Allan Nairn spent ity of incinerating larger amounts of voter registration drive ended in April more than a month in El Salvador waste in the future. with 90,000 new voters registered, recently and conducted a series of Mattox also said the EPA seems "to Armando Villareal of the Southwest remarkable interviews with members of get the cart before the horse," because Voter Registration Education Project the Salvadoran security forces, who it plans to formulate rules for ocean told the Associated Press April 12. openly admitted their connections to the incineration in August and to complete Villareal said the San Antonio-based CIA. a study of the need for incineration in group hopes to register 200,000 new Nairn writes that the U.S. involve- October. - voters statewide before the November ment goes back to the years of the election. The second phase of the project V The UT University Council passed Kennedy Administration when "agents a resolution April 16 requesting the UT will start in August and go through of the U.S. Government in El Salvador System Board of Regents to divest from October, he said. set up two official security organizations companies tied to . v Jane Fonda has a veterans group that . . . developed into the paramilitary apparatus that came to be known as the The Council is the governing body greatly exercised but not because of her Salvadoran Death Squads." Today, the of the faculty. It is made up of faculty workout book. CIA "continues to provide training, and administrative members and six The GI Forum, a national group with support, and intelligence to security student representatives. One of the 10,000 Texas members, is still stewing forces directly involved in Death Squad students, Trevor Pearlman, was the over Fonda's trip to North Vietnam activity," according to Nairn. sponsor of the resolution, which passed more than ten years ago. Directors of overwhelmingly. The U.S. Senate in April refused to the Forum voted in Corpus Christi April The Permanent University Fund has 15 to call a boycott on Jane Fonda put conditions on the $61 million in military aid to El Salvador, but Senator $200 million worth of holdings in products because of her anti-Vietnam companies with an interest in South War activities. Barry Goldwater agreed to hold what he called "exhaustive" hearings on the Africa, according to Joe Rymal, senior "We are not about to forget what she Salvadoran death squads. Those hear= securities analyst with the Investments did," a leader of the Forum told the ings have not yet been scheduled, and Trusts department of the UT Corpus Christi Caller. according to Goldwater's office. System. ►/ In the great debate over the United V Governor Mark White and Attorney V Mary Thornton of the Washington States role in Central America in the General Jim Mattox have both expressed Post reported in mid-April that "nearly first week of April, our own Senator reservations about a decision by an 40 percent of the earned income of Lloyd Bentsen at one point stood up and Environmental Protection Agency hear- attorney general designate Edwin Meese let it be known that "the United States ing officer 'to permit the burning of III and his wife in the past two years did not spawn terrorism or death squads 15,200 metric tons of hazardous wastes has come from an obscure foundation in El Salvador (see page 5)." off the Texas coast (see TO, 2/10/84). set lip by a Texas oilman." But in the May issue of The Progres- The waste would be burned for Dallas oilman William Moss set up sive one finds strong evidence to the research purposes, to study the feasibil- the William Moss Institute in 1982 "to study the future," Thornton reported. tion from a Pantex accident could be mate? These conservative Democratic Ursula Meese was named executive carried downwind. leaders have been on the move since director at a $40,000 annual salary. The exercise will involve only the John Glenn's campaign failed, slipping ✓ The Tulia Chamber of Commerce Pantex employees in charge of respond- into Hart's apparatus when that looked approved a resolution in April opposing ing to emergencies. The rest of Pantex's like a good bet and now sidling up to the location of high-level nuclear waste 2600 employees will continue to assem- Mondale. Does it mean a deal has been in Swisher and Deaf Smith Counties. ble warheads. "We've got a job to do cut for a Bentsen V.P. run? The Chamber's resolution read, in part, here," Wagner explained. V In a surprising departure from cus- "(W)hereas the agricultural economy of V Rep. Henry Gonzalez of San Anto- tomary political protocol, Rep. Jim the area will be severely damaged and nio criticized Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and Wright of Fort Worth, the House whereas DOE has even chosen a site Rep. Jim Wright of Texas, Rep. Michael Democratic Majority Leader who is in in Swisher County which could destroy line to become speaker, was the host the Roll-A-Cone Manufacturing com- Barnes of Maryland, and Mayor Henry Cisneros of San Antonio for signing the at a $500-a-person reception at the pany which is currently Swisher Kissinger Commission report on Central Sheraton-Carlton Hotel in Washington County's largest single manufacturer America. Of the mayor he said: "He in early April for Bob Krueger's and industrial employer, we . . . do didn't dissent; he signed the report. All campaign for the Democratic nomina- hereby oppose the efforts or any future he had was a little shimmy-shammy tion for the U.S. Senate. Leading party efforts of the DOE to locate a high level figures very seldom openly take sides nuclear waste repository in Swisher called 'separate views.' But that's not dissent." in a primary, Wright almost never. County or any Texas Panhandle loca- Endorsing Krueger, Wright opposed the tion." v William Grieder, the former Wash- ington Post reporter now writing for candidacies of Sen. Lloyd Doggett of The Department of Energy has nar- Rolling Stone, advances an interesting Austin and Rep. Kent Hance of Lub- rowed the choice to nine sites, two of thesis in that magazine for April 12: that bock. An associate of Wright's, conced- them in Texas, for the nation's first ing that this development was "a bit of permanent high-level waste repository. Vice President George Bush has con- verted his office "into a convenient back a break with tradition," said Wright and The current schedule calls for the Krueger have been friends for a long door for corporate lobbyists" and "a President to make the final selection in time." 1987. hidden court of last-resort for special- interest groups that have lost their Coor - rection. v U.S. Rep. John Bryant, D-Dallas, According to several arguments in Congress, in the federal sources, William Coors did not make has introduced a bill to require the courts, or at the regulatory process." sellers of hazardous waste disposal sites the remarks attributed to him by an Grieder's article on this subject is short article in the February 24, 1984 Rocky to notify buyers of the type and amount on examples tied specifically to Bush, of waste stored there. "What we are Mountain ,News. The News story, alleg- but he contends: "Case by case, the ing racist remarks were made by Coors essentially creating here," Bryant said, vice-president's office got involved in in an address to minority business "is a paper trail" to keep track of such some mean and petty issues that directly wastes. Each year, he added, "we leaders, was cited by the Texas COPE affect people's health and lives, from convention in a resolution to boycott generate about 250 million tons of the dumping of toxic pollutants in lakes Coors beer. Coor-ious. hazardous waste, over 2,000 pounds for and rivers to government warnings Correction: U.S. Army Fort Hood every man, woman, and child in Amer- concerning potentially harmful drugs." ica." does not have 2,000 tanks, as reported v Does the April 24 endorsement of in the 4/6/84 TO. Fort Hood has 428 v When the state Democratic party tanks and a total of 2,256 tracked hired Dan McClung to set up voter lists Walter Mondale's campaign by the likes of Dallas fundraiser Jess Hay, Lt. Gov. vehicles. for the 1984 elections, it did so with Bill Hobby, and former Gov. Dolph the understanding that McClung would Correction: On May 5, State Rep. not work for individual Democratic Briscoe mean Sen. Lloyd Bentsen is well Debra Danburg is not opposed by-a Lyn- candidates in the Presidential or U.S. on his way to being fitted for the role don LaRouchite; U.S. Rep. Martin Frost Senatorial primary races. There is of Mondale's Vice Presidential running- is. considerable grumbling around the state, however, about the fact that McClung is working in Congressional races. In the District 23 race in South Texas, he Holly Near is working for incumbent Chick Kazen in his fight against challenger Albert Bustamante. In the District 2 race he is working for Charlie Wilson. V The Pantex plant outside Amarillo, final assembly point of every U.S. Nueva Cancibn por la Paz en las Americas nuclear warhead, will practice its re- .110 Singing for Peace in the Americas sponse to accidents in a drill May 9, 10, and 11. The mock emergency, Wednesday, MAY 16th, 8 p.m. details of which plant manager Paul Paramount Theater, Austin Wagner says he will not know until the drill, could be in response to terrorism, TICKETS: 512, S10, $8, Children's discounts S10, S8, S6 fire, a nuclear explosion, or "spread of Available at: Book Women, Celebration!, Grok Books, Waterloo Records, American Friends Service radioactive material." Amarillo peace Committee office, and all UTTM outlets. Charge-a-ticket: 512-477-6060. activists will gather at the Pantex gate Childcare available—reservations must be made by 5-1 1-84. for the drill and release balloons carrying messages explaining that radia- For further information and childcare call 512-451-2303. THE TEXAS OBSERVER 17 ° SOCIAL CAUSE CALENDAR°

Notices on upcoming events must reach HOTLINES pertaining to Central America, with action the Observer at least three weeks in Several information lines have been request and relevant committee and floor advance. established in Washington, D.C., to votes. (202) 483-3391. provide current news on various legislative WITNESS FOR PEACE Children's Defense Fund: Hotline. issues. Most are recordings available 24 Covers legislation and policy concerning This summer and early fall, volunteers hours a day including off-peak hours and issues involving children, including most of Witness for Peace will go to Nicaragua weekends. Most are not toll-free. poverty-related and welfare-related legisla- for one- or two-week stays. Work in Council for a Livable World: Nuclear tion. Toll-free: (800) 424-9602. reconstruction projects, travel to develop- Arms Control Hotline. Up-dated every . Interfaith Action for Economic Justice: ment projects. and opportunities to speak Monday while Congress is in session. Hotline. Provides legislative information with local and national officials represent- provides information on arms control, on the following policy areas: food and ing varied perspectives will be included military budget legislation, Executive agriculture, health and human services, in the visits. which are open to 15 people Branch policy developments, and pending development and economic policy. Toll- from each state or geographical location. votes in Congress. Also includes a weekly free: (800) 424-7292. For more information contact Judith Action Request, giving people to contact Friends Committee on National Legisla- Abernathy, 2902 Beacon, San Antonio, and issues to discuss. (202) 543-0006. 78212. (512) 344-2535, or 735-9306. tion: Hotline. Messages up-dated each Coalition for a New Foreign and Friday. Information on a broad range of ORGANIZER'S MANUAL Military Policy: Central American Hotline. issues which are of interest to the FCNL. "Don't mourn — organize!' Covers events, legislation, and U.S. policy (202) 547-4343. The War Resisters League is offering a comprehensive book on organizing techniques, including chapters on connections between cutbacks in social West Ave., Austin. Call (512) 385-0620 constituencies, literature production, ac- programs and increases in arms spending for details. tions, working with the establishment, and military intervention, Contact the politics, and basic organizing techniques. Alliance for details, (214) 823-4580. HOUSTON FLOOD CONTROL To order the War Resisters League Among the national sponsors for Peace with Justice Week are the American The Citizens Environmental Coalition Organizer's Manual, or for a descriptive will sponsor a free public forum on Friends Service Committee, Baptist Peace- brochure, write WRL, 339 Lafayette St., "Harris County Flood Control, Policy, maker, Clergy and Laity Concerned, New York, N.Y, 10012; $9 per book, and Flooding Solutions for the Future," Fellowship of Reconciliation, National includes postage and handling. May 14. Hermann Park Garden Center Council of Churches of Christ-USA, and Auditorium, 1500 Hermann Dr., Houston, Sojourners. GRASSROOTS PEACE DIRECTORY 7 p.m. Informed participants from Hous- The Topsfield Foundation, a private ton environmental groups will question a foundation active in assisting grassroots OBSERVANCES panel of experts from the Harris County peace organizations, is organizing a Flood Control District and Houston May 13 — Mothers' Day. In 1872, Julia computer-based information service on planning association members. Call (713) Ward Howe had the idea for Mother's Day 523-3431 or 529-2258 for information. local, regional, and national-peace organi- as a festival for peace in which mothers zations with information about each would speak out against war. She sug- group's programs, constituency, focus, gested it was up to mothers "to prevent HOLLY NEAR/INTI-ILLIMANI and resources offered. Information about the waste of human life of which they alone Feminist singer Holly Near and the peace groups in Texas is needed. To be bear and know the cost." Chilean ensemble Inti-Illimani will per included, contact Mavis Belisle, 2701 May 17, 1893 — Caroline Crowell, first form a concert of vocal and instrumental Woodmere, Dallas, 75233, (214) 337- music, including Near's original composi- 5885. woman physician to begin practice in Austin (1926-1965, U.T.-Austin Student tions and those songs which reflect Inti- Health Center) was born. Illimani's experience of exile, May 16, CENTRAL AMERICA Paramount Theater, Austin, 8 p.m. A ORGANIZATIONS DIRECTORY May 1937 — Myrle Zappone organized special appeal for medical and educational The Central America Resource Center, a strike against the Shirlee Frock Co., San aid to Nicaragua, whose public social Austin, has just published an annotated Antonio; the first real victory for the service programs have been hampered by directory of more than 400 organizations ILGWU in San Antonio. recent U.S.-supported economic and mili involved in Central America-related work. tary disruptions, will be made at the The directory is available for $8 (postage concert by the performers and the Ameri- included; please prepay orders) from PAULINE OLIVEROS CONCERT can Friends Service Committee. Tickets, C.A.R.C., Box 2327, Austin, 78768. Musician and composer Pauline $12, at Bookwomen, Grok Bookstore, Oliveros will perform her recent works Waterloo Records, and AFSC; call (512) PEACE WITH JUSTICE WEEK "Rattlesnake Mountain," "Horse Sings 451-2303 for more information or to National and local congregations, peace from Cloud," and the "Seventh Man- reserve childcare for the concert. Call groups, interfaith councils, and community sion," with guest performers Heloise (512) 474-2399 for information about the organizations will observe a week of Gold, Helmi Harrington, and Strahl aid to Nicaragua program. educational and spiritual events focusing Music, May 6, Capitol City Playhouse, on nuclear disarmament and social justice, Austin, 8 p.m.; sponsored by Austin PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAYS May 4-13, beginning with Peace Sabbath Women and their Work. Call (512) 477- The photographic essays of rural Amer- celebrations May 4-6. The Interfaith 1064 for details. ica by photographers Robert Frank, Peaceforce of Houston has information on Marion Post Wolcott, and Morris Engel local activities, films, speakers, and ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION — whose 1949 prints of the Ray Rylander events; call Brenda Hardt (713) 688-3803. The Austin Center for Battered Women family of Buda, Texas, are featured in the In Dallas, the Alliance for Justice in '84 will celebrate its 7th Anniversary at a exhibit — will be May 19-July 29, Amon will conduct activities that draw the fundraiser May 10, Caswell House, 1404 Carter Museum, Fort Worth.

18 MAY 4, 1984 BFBRA For rni lions of years but t guess well Because there are new video our species has have to stop t'-tat cameras installed at the What's a border? vniarr.ted with the, now. border to stop immigrants. sec15.sons,. , Why?

in Scogg

ca bec Re

by ing w Dra • BOOKS AND THE CULTURE •

What to Read Before the Day After

By Alicia Daniel

Austin fresh fruit, oysters, and avocados, are average six pages, with many as short Two Texas writers have introduced scarce in most places, and where they as two or three. A third of the chapters a new era of postwar fiction with the are more plentiful, as in California, are devoted to Kunetka and Strieber's publication of Warday, a travelogue set housing becomes exorbitant and immi- travel experiences, which tie the book in the United States five years after a gration policies are strictly enforced. together. The rest are polls, documents, limited nuclear war. interviews and rumors, any several of and James Kunetka, both from San WARDAY which may be skipped without affecting Antonio, told Nuclear Times that an understanding of the book. Warday Warday is their attempt to "create a by Whitley Strieber and is custom-made for the busy, impatient, postwar consciousness," an awareness James Kunetka or reluctant fiction reader. only fiction can provide. To be widely New York: Holt, Rinehart, While not about as hot a topic as a read is the first priority of a novel that and Winston 1984. 374 pp. nun's confessions of her secret love proposes social change, and, as a Book- $15.95. affairs, Warday is timely. Nuclear war of-the-Month selection. Warday is well is becoming the conversation piece of on the way to mass distribution. Unfor- the '80s. And Strieber and Kunetka tunately, books created to be bestsellers The messages Warday offers are valid make Warday urgent by setting the make concessions. Warday's , back-flap and clear: war devastates people's lives, book's D-day on October 28, 1988 — blurb that the authors have written "a anarchy is no fun; wars happen as much just four years away. This device will work of fiction that reads like fact" from neglect as from malice. Strieber quickly date the book and indicates that confesses as much to the book's limita- and Kunetka stuff Warday full of indeed their desire is to sell enough tions as to its strengths. everything you wanted to know — much copies in four years to justify the of which you already know — about enterprise — by raising enitigh Warday chronicles the travels of nuclear war. All in all, getting this Strieber and Kunetka through a world consciences and/or enough money to information out is the best reason I know retire. created after nuclear war reduces Wash- for intentionally writing a bestseller. ington, D.C. (in addition to other large In terms of simple writing, Warday And if you ever have the desire to chunks of America) to a "forty-mile- excels: write a bestseller, Warday offers a good square desert of black glass dotted with example. A sure-fire American Jim and I leave. The hourly Dallas the carcasses of sparrows and Transit bus will stop on Forest Lane bestseller is something one can read larks. . . ." The book contains docu- in ten minutes. We refuse Andrew's comfortably over coffee, on a plane, or ments, polls, and interviews with men offer of a ride to the bus stop. I'd rather in the john. The topic is either and women eking out an existence in he and Anne stayed together, and, in perpetually hot or particularly timely postwar chaos. Food staples, including truth, I don't think I can hear to prolong and the writing kept simple. this parting. Warday makes every allowance for The sun is already hot. We pass those people who only read while through the neighborhood and turn onto Alicia Daniel is a freelance writer and simultaneously engaging in or waiting Plano Road. . . photographer who oversees Observer to engage in something else. The book Subject verb; subject verb object; layout and design. is divided into neat little chapters that diagramming sentences in this novel

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 19

would be an easy lesson for a ninth Or: Pommel Service — Quality Insurance grader. Evidence that Warday is meant When I die, I want to be given the to be read between glances out a plane grace to go for a good reason. I didn't AUCE ANDERSON AGENCY window. want to die to serve the frustrations of INSURANCE & REAL ESTATE some unhappy and confused people. Although novels that intend to be And the last sentences of the book: 808A E. 46th, Austin, Texas great fiction sometimes become 459-6577 bestsellers, novels that intend to be If only we have gained wisdom from bestsellers are rarely good fiction. the fire. If only we can accept how alike Warday suffers from underdeveloped we all are, one and another." One century's idiocy is another cen- characters, a superficial plot, I will say that Warday' s trespasses tury's wisdom. An aged philosopher against literature don't damage its Idion applies "crazy wisdom" to our unimaginative description and general modern problems in preachiness. Fiction writers choose credibility. From the introduction, characters of a particular race, age, sex where you learn to build a Kearney THUS SPAKE IDION or religion to challenge a reader's biases Fallout Meter — for measuring levels by Idion II (Otto Mullinax) or to advance a storyline. But the two of radiation — with a Folger's coffee Afterword by Mark Adams can and two leaves of aluminum foil, main characters in Warday are the "Surprising, illuminating, infuriating, authors pretending to be older. None of to the end, Kunetka and Strieber's vision and funny." — Ronnie Dugger their characteristics can be invested with of a postwar America never ceases to "Motivates me to keep on trying to any larger meaning because they are not inform. But as much as the world may save the world." — Ruth Ellinger symbolic; they are real. Contact with need primers on nuclear survival, there "Mullinax can take current news and the minor characters is too fleeting to are still those of us who like to read explode it in your face."—H. B. Fox leave memorable impressions. And a good book. PACKRAT PRESS some of the fictional characters are 4366 N. Diana, Oak Harbor, Wa 98277 presented in sketches so compact that 6.95 paper, 10.95 cloth ± 2.00 shipping they become stereotyped. The plot is simply a journey from Texas to California to New York and back. Since the characters don't undergo Life Insurance and Annuities any change, the book could be torn Martin Elfant, CLU soytife apart, shuffled and reassembled, and it 4223 Richmond, Suite 213, Houston, TX 77027 would lose only the continuity of the (713) 621-0415 geographic progress and the immediate history of Kunetka and Strieber. \ , As for description, the writers act as though being exact is the same as being descriptive. Numbers permeate Warday, not only on the numerous pages dedi- cated to opinion polls and memos outlining the amounts of radiation buildings can withstand, but within the Printers — Stationers — Mailers — Typesetters description itself: — High Speed Web Offset Publication Press — After half a day of having my paperwork processed, signing waivers of liability, and undergoing low-level Counseling — Designing interrogation about my journalistic interests, I was put on a jeep and driven Copy Writing — Editing to the flight line. I boarded a six- passenger helicopter with army mark- Trade — Computer Sales and Services - ings. My escort, the only other passenger - Complete Computer Data Processing Services -- on the flight, was a cheery captain who had made the trip dozens of times before. He kept up a mostly one-sided chatter all the way to the zone .. .

L.1ED PlINT/ * Numbers are pure, so pure in fact that p,V...... „..- No FUTURA UNION TRADES COUNCIL 0 _ PRESS they relay relatively little information, 7 -....— AUSTIN unlike colors that are double-freighted TEXAS with visual meaning and emotion; numbers outside a formal system of symbols become textureless accuracies and are hardly evocative or engaging. ILIPT'llJPRIIII, And for a book set up as a travelogue, 512/442-7836 1714 South Congress Warday manages to be quite preachy: P.O. Box 3485 Austin, Texas 78764 Our little nuclear war was not about ultimate and final ends at all. The issue was not Armageddon, it was consequences. \

20 MAY 4, 1984 A Pur,-; Service Message from the American Income Life Insurance Co.—Waco, Texas—Bernard Rapoport, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer

Is Organized Labor .A Special Interest?

by Bayard Rustin

An idea has crept into our nation's political discourse job security. Yet even such interests — although in recent years which is both erroneous and terribly negotiated for a small group of interested parties — are damaging to the cause of social justice and racial worthy and much needed. After all, decent, safe jobs equality. That idea — to date, largely unchallenged — are vital to the revitalization of our economy. is that organized labor is a narrow, selfish, special interest group seeking to impose its will on an unwitting And when organized labor acts together, as the American public. national AFL-CIO, or when it acts in a city or state through a central labor council, the labor movement is not a Almost daily new attacks on labor are carried in our narrow special interest group. It is the consensus voice nation's newspapers. Countless articles decry the of the interests of a broad cross-section of Americans. unions' attempts to promote an allegedly narrow agenda The ethnic, social and economic range it spans is far by backing Walter Mondale in the Democratic primaries. broader than that represented by any group of business- Some 40 percent of Democrats and independents appear men or financiers. to agree. Frequently, as when it calls for minimum wage Yet the reality is far different from the shrill rhetoric. legislation, labor cannot even be said to be acting largely The labor movement, in contrast to the oil industry or on behalf of its own members. For union members' the tobacco lobby or the American Medical Association, wages already are protected by collective bargaining is not a monolith of identical special interests. It is a agreements. The labor movement is also on record for broad-based coalition of diverse interests seeking to occupational safety and health standard-enforcement for coalesce around a program of jobs and economic growth. all workers not merely union members. In the labor movement we find represented an economic, racial, social, and political cross-section of America. The And when the AFL-CIO and the trade union movement labor movement, after all, is the only mass-based lobbies for jobs, for increased aid to education, for a democratic institution which includes Hispanic garment national industrial policy designed to promote economic workers eking out a living on $200 a week and middle- growth at home and U.S. competitiveness abroad it is income black and Polish-American steelworkers strug- acting as a voice for all of us who work for a living. gling to hold on to their decent jobs at a time of economic If this amounts to a narrow and special interest then decline; male and female municipal workers, grappling it is the special interest of the vast majority of Americans. with the knotty problems of equal pay for comparable At a time which seems like "open season" on the work and chemical workers exposed to hazardous democratically-elected leadership of the labor move- wastes. ment, it might be useful to remind ourselves of these The labor movement includes Blacks and whites; elementary truths. Hispanics and Italian-Americans; men and women; 65- The Republicans and Democrats who campaign for year olds and teenagers; high school dropouts and high office on an anti-labor plank may be playing to the Ph.D's; Christians, Moslems, and Jews. In short it misguided sympathies of some Americans. Yet they are includes a representative cross-section of Americans. doing a great disservice to our nation's future. For they Clearly, when a single union negotiates a contract for are attacking the one democratic institution in American its members it is acting out of a special interest. It is life which is a reliable force in the struggle for jobs and after all concerned with getting the very best wages and social justice at home and democracy and security working conditions for its members and for assuring them abroad.

American Income Life Insurance Company BERNARD RAPOPORT Chairman of the Board and EXECUTIVE OFFICES: P.O. 80X 208, WACO, TEXAS 78703, 817-772-3050 Chief Executive Officer

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21 Professing English in El Paso

To Narayan Kutty, of Bombay I've thought of you a lot here Curling wave for whatever reasons that breaks on these dry shores. it occurred to me you would know what to make of this pain that trickles through me lower than everything else, like I talk of Beowulf and point the dregs of the Rio Grande leaking "Out there, past the University, beyond the Interstate five hundred yards, it comes up short" and the old Hacienda Restaurant, running and think, right there, clear back to Connecticut and that lake behind the smelter, Madero pitched his camp where you said, "Yes, well smack on the border and began this we can only love the beautiful." fallen century of revolutions, two years before Ambassador Lane Wilson slid the edge It's easy to say of Huerta's ambition across his it's Mexico, trenchant sadness presidential throat. And Pancho Villa over there past the Globe Mills. crossed right there to recoup a destiny I go across the hall to Chuck's window against such treason; past those mountains and there it is, phalanx of hills lies Columbus where, years later, he laid spread flat up to the JuArez Mountains, a dirty hand on Lady Liberty's thigh. thick with the huts of the colonia Now, the honor of this bandit runs clear interwoven with dirt streets, smoke, from here to Tierra del Fuego. moving figures. For a month or so I speak of Hrothgar: "0 Beowulf, I couldn't name what gave the beware pride. . . ." That's the thing foreign quality to that; then poetry can do, its voice of exact thinking I realized it was the making do about the all of experience, reaching with natural geography, nothing moved out of speech toward music a man with a shovel — or half and the king's integrity. a dozen men — couldn't. On our side the rock is sheared off with impeccable geometry to sweep the calculus of the Interstate through. It bothers So why, Narayan, when I us here, curdles our small talk cross the Juarez plaza, trampled with a continual sour taint bare and crowded as purgatory's foyer, far back in the throat — but do the eyes flush with light? what's there to say about a desert I believe I'm not so insensitive where a million mystics come to renew as to think it's poverty itself — visions of exile, slipping through like sand the sadism of loving its constraint on the natives, giving rein to their quaint attachments and crafts. Dry river Nor hope of Madero's return: that of need love comes only when it comes, Every night comes holding in its own bleeding guts. on Channel 5 there's a parade Yesterday morning, early, driving to class of paralytic children, widows, I saw a grain of sun, fallen there snake-bit refugees from Parral, across the river in the colonia Durango, Torreon; parents with babies (some car, shop window) and it gleamed hostage to hospital bills, and and gleamed out of those low shapes last night a mother said her below the mountains, a glittering curse, eight-year-old daughter hadn't retul-ned a cry I suppressed with difficulty. from El Paso, where she'd been sent The radio wept its sordid ranchera to work, two days ago: all this "para tu amor . . . para tu amor" through lips scarcely moving and suddenly I understood that thing with ungodly humility, begging Lorca said: "Perhaps some day I'll work and wheelchairs. love bad poetry the way I now love bad music, to madness." Was that, Narayan, the beauty we have need of? A pain whose use Willard Gingerich teaches English at the is to feel how far under that plaza University of Texas at El Paso, where our roots reach down, feeding the view from his window informs this — on something other than poem. Big Macs, marijuana, revolution.

22 MAY 4, 1984 Today in El Paso they buried two bodies: a bemedalled major vet of Viet Nam, and a baby of two weeks or so. The Major was in his VW INVEST pounded and stabbed; the baby picked up, sticky with placenta and leaves, in a back yard IN four days after Christmas. She lasted two weeks. Somebody YOUR down at Welfare named her Joy, and so proved he knows PRINCIPLES. what I'm struggling toward here: That life can so insist upon itself beyond all history can invent — a history Vallejo knew Now you can start is the true surrealism: encounter putting your money where of an infant and a soldier your heart is. There is a in the graveyard. From this distance, Narayan, new generation of profes- it's obvious we're not immune sional organizations and certainly not secure individuals dedicated to behind a trivial river balancing your investment the killdeer skim across. objectives with your social A man who knew history could breathe concerns. prophecy in the air here. Order your copy of the Numbness is not an option, though 1983-84 FUNDING it whispers in the oleander EXCHANGE DIRECTORY "rest, rest" — poison leaves that go for the nerve. OF SOCIALLY RESPON- 0 fire so SIBLE INVESTMENTS: shut up in the bones the most up-to-date listings that I weary with forebearing; of socially responsible- would the eye could sort it all aright. ✓ money markets 1,°1f mutual funds But there's more to it, Narayan, ✓ co-operative than Juarez, something in enterprises the quality, full and real, of this knowledge that has abandoned tow investment advisors what we were by that dark lake Send $5.00 to Live Oak, P.O. in Connecticut. Now the confrontation Box 4601, Austin, TX 78765 with your world is alive; it caresses, it assaults, it violates the skin of the republic. And poetry is of use, even here, to say Love this Name beauty not difficult but deadly sharp. Dare clarity. Address It is not a question of place, finally, City State Zip but of being in place, as light is everywhere itself but revealing each place in particular; cs 8 ° no sadness in its rake across the irregular face of my patio fence, the spread of it SOCINUS on concrete, here. But the eye is more than light, more 101"518114 than seeing, and poetry is more than its own clarity: a refraction AN" cutting deep across clarity to bleed !f: the man — all of us — on the scalpel of a word 0 filo de mi amor 0 hiriente filo b., 0.'''&' q Np. ■^ „,,.— ''nZ!'.. , Beowulf beware. „0,,,s. — Willard Gingerich

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 23 ,,, Postmaster If undeliverable, send Form 3579 to The Texas Observer, iSCO W. 7th, Austin, Texas 78701

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i,D MA BELL by Bryan Sloan is a book explaining LEGAL RESEARCH, LAW STUDENTS CLASSIFIl their deceptive accounting practices and how Bell provide reasonably. Mark Ryan, "Law." Box 116, has averaged over 42% profit annually for 25 Dallas, Texas 75275. NO NIO'RON FOR PRESIDENT years. and has already received far more telephone burnperstickers, $2.00 ea., 3/$5, 10/$12, rate raises than due. $7.50 at your book store COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS — ACORN 20-i-/S1.00 ea., DemoGraphics, Box 9802-553, or order postpaid from Vantage Press, 516 West needs organizers to work with low and moderate Austin, Texas 78766. 34th Street. New York, N.Y. 10001. income families in 16 states for political and . BIG BROTHER BOOK OF LISTS, a startling economic justice. Direct action on neighborhood collection of trivia to prove that Orwell's 1984 BOOK HUNTING? No'obligation search for rare deterioration, utility rates, taxes, health care. is upon us. 246 pages, $6.95 from. Privacy Journal, or out-of-print books. Sue Sprad lin, Tangible results and enduring rewards — long P.O. Box 15300, Washington, D.C. 20003. BOOKFRONT. (512) 472-2540, Box 5545, hours and low pay. Training provided. Contact Austin, Texas 78763. TEXANNA specialist. ACORN at (214) 823-4580. Dallas; (817) 924- NUCLEAR ARMS CONTROL HOTLINE. Browsing by appointmentonly. 1112 W. 10th, 1401, Ft. Worth; (713) 523-6989, Houston; (512) Call (202) 543-0006 to get the latest information Austin. 442-8321, Austin. on arms control and military budget legislation, and what you can do about it. Updated weekly. SAN ANTONIO ACLU, 106 South St. Mary's, LECTURES ON HUMAN EMOTIONS -- one 100 Maryland Avenue NE, Washington, DC San Antonio 78205. Call 224-6791. Join us at our lecture or a series. Lois Fahs Timmins, Ed.D., 20002. Council for a Livable. World. Liberty Fiesta, November 12. 22 years psychiatric experience. Inquiries wel- corned.n 6145 Anita St., Dallas, Texas 75214. THE TEXAS COUNCIL ON FAMILY VIO- BACKPACKING — MOUNTAINEERING — LENCE needs your support to our efforts to end RAFTING. Outback Expeditions, P.O. Box 44, domestic assaults in our state. Only $25 buys a Terlingua, Texas 79852. (915) 371-2490. WHEATSVILLE FOOD CO-OP. 3101 Guada lupe, Austin 78705. Open 9 to 11. yearly membership and our highly acclaimed FREEWHEELING BICYCLES. 2404 San Ga- monthly newsletter, The River. Write to Texas briel, Austin. For whatever your bicycle needs. WE DON'T EXPECT EVERY WOMAN to join Council on Family Violence, 2525 Wallingwood the National Organization for Women. Just the #1107, Austin. Texas 78746 or call 512/327-8582 JOIN THE ACLU. Membership $20. Texas Civil 100,000 who are discriminated against and the for our membership brochure and newsletter Liberties Union, 600 West 7th. Austin 78701. men who care. $27. Texas NOW, Box 1131, sample. DRAFT REGISTRATION QUESTONS? Draft Richardson, TX 75080. WORKING TO KEEP STATE AND CHURCH counseling available from American Friends SHADE TREE COMPUTER MAINTENANCE SEPARATE. Houston Chapter of American Service. Committee, 1022 W. 6th, Austin 78703 — Microcomputer service and repair. 5645 Atheists. Write: P.O. Box 92008, Houston, Texas (512) 474-2399. Hillcroft, Suite 608, Houston, Texas 77036. (713) 77206-2008 or call: (713) 664-7678. TEXAS BOOKS & AUTHORS MAGAZINE: 975-6760. THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY meets first $10.00 for six issues. Write Dept. A-6, Box Wednesday of every month, 7 p.m., Austin Public 13622, Houston 77007. Library, 800 Guadalupe, meeting room A. Contact Classified advertising is 40(D per word. Gary Edward Johnson, 1500 Royal Crest #132, THE JUST-PUBLISHED 1971-1981 Texas Discounts for multiple insertions within a 12- Observer Index Austin 78741. (512) 441-6378, or LP Fleadquar- is now available. Contact the month period: 25 times, 60%; 12 times, 30%; business office at 600 W. 7th, Austin 78701, (512) ters, 7887 Katy Freeway #385, Houston 77024. 6 times, 15%. (713) 686-1776. 477-0746.

24 MAY 4, 1984