The North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 66, No. 77, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 24, 1983 Page: 2 of 6
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The North Texas Daily
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Commentary
Page 2 Thursday, February 24, 1983
Editorials
University funding
Representatives in the Texas House approved a proposed
constitutional amendment Tuesday which would create a
special fund for construction at schools not affiliated with
the Permanent University Fund.
The bill has been forwarded to the Senate, and although
it does not provide the favorable funding of earlier pro-
posals, the Senate should approve the measure and pres-
ent it to Texas voters April 30.
The bill was presented by Austin Rep. Wilhelmina Delco,
and would create a new fund for construction, repair and
library expenditures for schools outside the PUF, a
superfund generated from oil and gas revenues. NT and
Texas Woman’s University would be eligible to draw from
the new fund. The proposal would also require the PUF
be expanded to all schools in the Texas A&M University
and University of Texas systems. At present, only A&M
and UT draw from the PUF, leaving affiliated schools,
like Prairie View A&M and Texas A&M at Galveston, to
fend for themselves in the legislative system.
Delco’s bill originally was to provide up to SI25 mil-
lion a year to the construction fund for non-PUF schools.
A finance-conscious House cut that figures to $75 million
a year, amid concerns representatives may have to increase
state taxes this year to cover possible budget deficits.
The House also added an amendment to the bill which
would require the universities to implement tuition increases
if school needs exceed funds available.
Delco’s bill, as approved by the House Tuesday, is an
important piece of legislation. Universities outside of the
PUF system have operated in a piece meal appropriations
battle since 1979, when the Legislature did away with the
state’s property tax, which had provided university funding.
The $75 million per year funding established in the
revised bill is fair, given the financial concerns of the
Legislature. Only the amendment which requires univer-
sities to increase tuition needs further clarification.
If universities request more than the $75 million avail-
able in the proposed fund, the revised bill requires in-
creases in university tuition to be enacted to generate the
needed revenues.
The bill does not specify, however, if one school or all
non-PUF schools or all Texas universities would be af-
fected by the change, nor does it state whether tuition
rates would drop once the needed revenues were generat-
ed. Rep. Bob Bush of Sherman said Tuesday he believes
clarifying legislation will be enacted once the amendment
is approved by voters, but it is senseless to wait until the
measure is voted on.
It is reasonable to expect that universities seeking funding
provide some of their own revenues, but Delco’s bill must
clearly identify the process through which tuition increases
come about, and allow for reductions in tuition once rev-
enues needed for a university project have been raised.
If the Legislature clarifies those conditions, Delco’s bill
will be a positive step toward an improved university sys-
tem in Texas.
Independent EPA
A bipartisan group of House and Senate members, no
doubt somewhat disgusted with tiresome controversy, this
week proposed legislation that would effectively remove
the Environmental Protection Agency from presidential
control.
The bill would create an Environmental Protection Com-
mission, a five-member body appointed by the president
for staggered seven-year terms. The commission would
not be under the control of the president, and it would
submit its own budget reccomendations directly to Con-
gress without the approval of the administration-controlled
Office of Management and Budget.
In addition, the commission would handle its own liti-
gation and would represent itself in court, instead of reiv-
ing on the Justice Department, as does the EPA.
Lamentable as it may be, it seems that the president
can no longer be trusted with controlling an agency with
the singular purpose of protectng the environment.
A superfund—EPA’s five-year $1.6 billion bankroll—was
established by Congress after the Love Canal disaster to
help facilitate cleanups of other hazardous waste dumps
Congress also gave the EPA the power to sue chemical
dumpers to recover up to three times the cost of the cleanup.
The EPA has identified some 14.000 potentially haz-
ardous dump sites. Of these, 418 were designated most
in need of an EPA cleanups. So far, cleanup work has
been completed at only five sites.
The Reagan administration has adopted the policy of
attempting to negotiate with companies dumping waste
illegally instead of suing them.
The bill would take the EPA out from under the presi-
dent's thumb, an action which is urgently needed consid-
ering President Reagan's tendency to appoint heads of
agencies whose sole function seems to be sabotaging the
purpose of the agency.
Some functions of government are so important that
they cannot be changed by the whim of a president, who
may leave office in several years, but who may leave the
results of their ideological whimsy with the United States
much longer.
Protecting the environment from opportunistic businesses
which are more concerned with inexpensive dumping of
hazardous waste than w ith safety is one of the more im-
portant governmental functions.
The strides made in the last decade towards cleaning
and protecting the environment should not be undone sim-
ply because an administration with an irresponsible atti-
tude toward having a clean environment has come to
power. An independent EPA would be able to ignore this
irresponsible reproach.
The North Texas Daily
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North Texas State University Denton, Texas
Printed by the North Texas State University Printing Office
Southwestern Journalism Congress
PACEMAKER 6 TIMES LAURIE GRIFFIN, editor
ALL-AMERICAN 75 TIMES DUANE PELZEL, advertising manager
The North Texas Daily, student newspaper of North Texas
State University, is published daily, Tuesday through Fri-
day, during long semesters and weekly during the summer
sessions. The NT Daily is not published during review
and examination periods or school vacations. The Daily
is a non-profit newspaper providing information, entertain-
ment and commentary for the NTSU community. It serves
as a laboratory educational experience for students in
reporting, writing, editing, advertising and photography
classes within the journalism department. Students receive
grades according to the quality of work done for the paper.
Box 5278, NT Station, Denton, Texas 76203
Editorial offices 565-2353 or 565-3576
Advertising office 565-2851
Letter Policy
The North Texas Daily welcomes letters from readers.
Letters must be signed and include the writer’s address
and telephone number. Letters should be logical and con-
cise and subject to editing for space and libel. Mail letters to
Box 5278 NT Station. Denton, Texas 76203.
Signed commentaries, cartoons and readers' letters reflect
the opinions of the authors and should not be confused with
the editorial statements of The North Texas Daily. Opinions
appearing on this page do not necessarily reflect those of
the North Texas State student body, faculty, staff, adminis-
tration or regents.
Journalistic exercise ends
reporter's questioning of art
Willpower alone didn't make the tele-
phone stop ringing. Finally I answered it.
“Whut do you want?"
“Trent, we need a story covered quick.’’
The phone call all journalists learn to
hate. I thought fast.
"Sorry, wrong number. Ibis is Waldo's
Mortuary. You stab 'em. we slab ’em, you
dice 'em. we. . . ."
“Knock it off. this is important."
“Can’t you get some sophomore to do
the story? I need my sleep.” Sometimes
my esteemed editoress doesn’t realize the
sensitive natures of her writers.
“It's too dangerous for a sophomore.
“Too dangerous for a sophomore! And
not too dangerous for me?”
"Listen, you’ve got five minutes to get
here or I'll tell that 325-pound groupie of
yours where you live.”
"I'll be right there.”
They looked like metal I-beams or some-
thing bent into weird shapes, most of them
with a heart of broken concrete. They just
appeared overnight," my editor had said.
“Find out where they came front and what
they are. And Trent—be careful. ”
I counted 12 of them, scattered around
the outside of the University Union. Three
years of journalism classes had prepared
me for the rigorous inquiry I knew was
necessary if this story was to be cracked.
“Hey, do you know what the hell that
is?” I asked a passerby, pointing to one of
the objects.
“That thing? Christ. 1 don’t know . Part
of some Castro plot, I’m sure,” he said.
He pulled his green beret over one eye and
buttoned his army fatigue jacket. 'This kind
of thing tends to happen every time sub
versives gain a little power in our United
States government. ”
“Subversives’” I asked.
"Yeah. Haven't you heard? Those Dem-
ocrats in Congress are getting stronger all
the time.”
"Democrats? What do they have to do
with these objects?”
He pulled a pipe out of a pocket, lit it
and said, ”1 don't know. Kind of makes
you wonder though.” He placed a hand
on my shoulder and drew me near. "You’re
not a Democrat, are you?" he asked.
After he left I threw away the "Reagan
84” and "Gorsuch is Gorgeous" buttons
he'd pinned on my jacket.
Soon ;i young couple walked toward me.
"Hey. what's that?” the woman asked.
"I don't know. They must’ve been set
up last night though." I said, looking at
the blond's red cardigan sweater and won-
dering if the guy with her was her boyfriend.
"Obviously, they are works of art ex-
pressing the isolation the young intellectual
inevitably experiences when his work and
dreams arc juxtaposed in a framework of
modern decadence,” the guy said.
Trent
Eades
Yep. I thought, must be her boyfriend.
She looked at him with eyes wide.
"Of course,” he said, "the concrete in
the middle symbolizes the oxymoron aspects
of. ...”
liven enterprising investigative reporters
need time away from a story'—time to gain
a prospective of the situation and to under-
stand the potential significance a story can
have on a newspaper's readers. Besides, I
hadn't eaten breakfast yet.
After listening to two students sitting at
the table next to me in the Campus Chat, I
decided that working on the story w as more
important than eating breakfast.
"Phallic symbols.” one had said.
"They're phallic symbols. Think about it.
The curvature of the rusted metal, the shape
of the crumbly concrete. Obviously phal
lie symbols.”
I don’t think they mean anything," said
the buxom redhead sitting next to him.
"They're just for entertainment. They’re
fun.”
"Phallic symbols,” the guy said.
Suddenly my sausage links didn't seem
so appetizing.
Since 1 was in the Union anyway, I de-
cided to see what Student Association Pres-
ident Robert Earley thought those strange
objects were. He said they were artistic
works put up by a couple of art department
students. I can't quote him directly since
he's been going out with an art major and
doesn’t want to mess up a big date.
Art objects, Yeah, right.
I headed back outside. As 1 passed the
Union Courtyard I noticed one of the ob-
jects had gotten inside the building. Was
there no end? A tall, gawky man with a
slipstick hanging from his belt was study-
ing the object, scribbling notes in a rag-
ged, yellow notebook.
"This is incredible!" he said to me as I
walked toward him. “Simply incredible"
“What do you mean?” I asked, keep-
ing a wary eye on him. Genius types are
strange people.
“Look at this,” he said, shoving his note-
book in my face and pointing a ruler at the
object. ”11 you take the distance between
this chunk of concrete and this metal beam,
divide by the number of these objects on
campus, and multiply the square root of
that sum by the average number of NT
search committees per semester, you get a
result which, when subtracted from the
number of begats in the Old Testament,
equals the number of pages in Jules Verne's
‘From the Earth to the Moon.'
“And you know what that means"
I did indeed, Schizo-city.
I knew when I was licked. This story
was just too much for me. I went back to
the newspaper office, prepared to face my
editor.
"Oh, there you arc.” she said. ”1 was
trying to get hold of you. 1 decided you
were right after all I assigned a sophomore
to do the story. Turns out a couple of art
students from the art department put those
things up last night. ”
“Oh" I said.
A prophet finds no comfort in his own land
Many are called, but few respond to message from aging machinist turned
Eugene Changey, 62, lives with his sis-
ter in Maple Heights. Ohio, on Social Se-
curity payments and on what he was given
when his employers moved his tool and
die job to North Carolina, leaving Eugene
in Maple Heights.
For 40 years. Eugene has spent most of
his time sending letters and books to con-
gressmen. presidents, foreign heads of state
and university newspapers, to encourage
them to love one another, forsake war and
nuclear weapons, and to live according to
God’s laws.
And Eugene believes he is the reincar-
nation of Jesus Christ
In 1942, Eugene believes, God came to
him in a mental institution and revealed
Eugene's calling, and the man bom Jeno
Ferenc Csongei, to immigrant Hungarian
parents, has been attempting to convert an
unbelieving world since.
Disbelief and ridicule from almost every
comer followed Eugene's calling, probably
a predictable response in an age shy on
messianic messages. Now Eugene feels his
age. and he feels the years of disbelief,
and he's ready to retire from the outside
world and await whatever is left for his
life.
I called Eugene because, for as long as
anyone can remember, he has mailed in-
frequent, uneven letters addressed To The
Editor, requesting that we publish evidence
of the existence of the Son of God on Earth.
^ g Ralph
Gauer
It is an interesting claim he makes,
whether you believe it or not. one more
often presented by the lunatic fringe than
by a spectacled old man in a tie and busi
ness suit. No one from The Daily had ever
responded and. from his conversation. I
learned response to Eugene's call has been
slim of late.
“We’ve been mostly contained to the
house these days,” he said, and paused a
long moment “I don’t go out to much any-
more, and I don't want to go out on any
street comers on a soap box "
Eugene speaks slowly, and his voice and
speech gave the impression he is careful to
present every thought logically. He stops,
coughs, checks a thought, clears his throat,
and moves on:
"All our letters and our books—we've
got eight books—we send out gratis. We
don’t ask for money. The only thing we
ask is that you publish the existence of a
living God. . . .”
"Arc Eugene and God the same person?"
1 wanted to know how he saw him*elf, but
how can you ask someone if they think
they're really God?
"Umm. . .well, no man can know the
Son. but the Father. My Father knows me
and I know Him." Roughly Matthew 11:27.
for those who keep up on that sort of thing
He paused, then continued. "You see, I
try to make my mind a blank, and He speaks
to me as from above a void. I try to write
down everything He tells me. That's what
I write in those letters.”
When his employers decided to move
their plant south, out of Maple Heights,
they decided not to take Eugene with them
They gave him $6,1 MM) and showed him
the door.
He is now using the last of that money
to send his letters and books to the few he
thinks believe. Three days after I called,
four of his eight books arrived on my desk,
Express Mail from Maple Heights and
Eugene.
"Editors alt. they try to suppress the
information of my existence. The public
has a right to know , and I have to pay to
have my books published.
"I’m retired now All my money I earned
at the machine shop goes to these letters,
and what I spend for the house, or give to
my sister.” His sister answered when I
called, and sounded astonishingly average.
She called him to the phone “It's for you,
Eugene," and seemed to putter about in
the kitchen while I talked with Eugene.
Sounds of cabinets opening and chairs mov-
ing filtered over our conversation.
I asked “What does God think of the
condition of the world?" He can’t be too
pleased, God knows
He paused a long time, and I could hear
sounds Irom his home and the sounds of
deep, slow breathing.
“Oh, it's an upheaval. . . .uh, how did
you put that question?”
"Is God happy with the way the world
is going?"
"This isn't what God intended for the
world: man brought that upon himself. Mur
der, rape, fighting . . .my Father had noth
ing to do with that. There are two basic
governing powers, good and evil, and man
has the choice of the power of good or the
power of evil.”
“What about Judgement Day? Is it
close?”
He paused again "It could be very close.
. . .If the condition of the world goes on
as it is, and nations keep stockpiling these
atomic weapons while so many people are
starving . . It is a great concern to my
Father, all these hungry people, and all this
danger"
He caught a breath. “You know, all peo-
ple are interlinked together with a chain of
my Father's light. He can destroy this
world. . "
“How docs God want us to live?”
"Uh, the best plan is to live righteously
and right, to help your neighbor You know,
there seems to be a lot of church programs
on Sunday, and you can sec them on the
television, but it seems like most people
forget to take that home with them. They
should. . uh. His pause lengthened,
and I didn't know if I was to respond.
"Live God’s teaching everyday?" I
asked, and immediately regretted. Isn't that
phrase a little too cute, tixi much a reminder
of Sunday schools too long past?
"Yes, that's exactly it. Live Gtxl's teach-
ing everyday. I guess you have a little bet-
ter way with words than me.” They're not
my words. Eugene, or weren't.
"We’ve just finished a letter to 500 re-
ligious leaders, and I have some more to
mail to some congressmen, but I think these
could be the last ones now.”
Eugene has spent his life savings at this,
and he sees his money, and his time, run
mng out.
"You know, I'm retired now, and I only
have a little money to spend on the house
here, and what I give to my sister, but I'll
send what I can when I can. Do I have
your address right?”
Yes, he does, and the letters will still
come, addressed to me, from Eugene.
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The North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 66, No. 77, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 24, 1983, newspaper, February 24, 1983; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth723732/m1/2/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.