10 —The Daily Collegian Wednesday, Aug. 29, 1984
state news briefs
Bell of Pa. calls for higher local rate
HARRISBURG (AP) Local phone rates should go up because
residential customers aren’t paying their fair share of the phone
system’s costs, a Bell of Pennsylvania official told a Senate panel
yesterday.
But the state consumer advocate said that the phone company is
overestimating the cost of providing only local phone service, and
that residential consumers are already paying their fair share.
Bernard Reca, a division manager for Bell, told the Senate
Consumer Protection Committee that businesses and other long
distance customers are subsidizing the cost of local service. If
that subsidy remains, they will flee the system, raising costs for
smaller customers, he said.
It costs Bell an average of $12.73 a month to provide each
customer with a dial tone, but the charge for that dial tone is now
only $3.74 a month, he said. On top of that, customers pay other
fees to make local and long-distance calls.
Consumer Advocate David Barasch told the panel that the cost
of providing just a dial tone is much lower than Bell claims.
Lottery winner charged with theft
PHILADELPHIA (AP) A $4.4 million lottery winner, already
on probation,for passing a worthless check, was charged yester
day with passing 17 more bad checks totaling $77,877, an assistant
district attorney said.
Detectives from the district attorney’s economic crime unit
arrested Pennsylvania Lotto winner Raymond Lenox, 40, of
Philadelphia, on 26 counts of theft and 17 of passing bad checks.
Lenox was being held at the Police Administration Building and
was to be arraigned last night. '
Assistant District Attorney Michael Weisberg said Lenox wrote
the checks to 12 area merchants and an attorney for goods and
.services he needed to set up two city nightclubs that he had bought'
with his winnings. Both clubs are now closed.
Lenox is already on one year’s probation imposed Aug. 20 when
he agreed to make good on a $3,495 check. He also faces trial on
earlier check charges involving $lB,OOO, and Weisberg said
“complaints are still coining in.”
nation news briefs
Stamp prices may increase 3 cents
LAS VEGAS, Nev. (AP) The cost of mailing a letter is likely
to go up 3 cents, and a decision on when new rates would take
effect may be made within days, Postmaster General William F.
Bolger said yesterday.
Bolger told the annual National League of Postmasters conven
tion that the rate hike probably would take effect in early 1985, ;
with first class mail expected to increase to 23 cents from the •
current 20 cents.
The increase is needed because “expenses have caught up to us
and have exceeded our income,” he said.
The postal service lost sliB million in the last accounting period,
he said, but heavy mail volume had averted a projected $195
million loss. The accounting periods cover 28-day cycles.
FDA calls microwave ovens 'safe'
WASHINGTON (AP) The Food and Drug Administration
said yesterday that consumers needn’t be worried about the
safety of their microwave ovens, despite a University of Washing
ton study suggesting that microwave radiation caused cancer in
test rats.
FDA spokesman Dave Duarte said the rats were exposed to
radiation levels far exceeding those to which a consumer would be
exposed, even by Using a microwave oven frequently. There have
been few problems with microwave oven leakage most of those
tested by the FDA don’t leak at all largely because the agency’s
standard is a strict one, he said. (
“You really would have to throw them on the ground, smash
them and do all sorts of things for them to leak,” Duarte said.
The University of Washington study, sponsored by the Air
Force, exposed 100 rats to microwave radiation for 21 hours a day
for all their lives.
world news briefs
. Reports on cargo plane crash differ
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) Nicaragua yesterday claimed
its troops shot down a C-47 cargo plane carrying supplies to rebels
and captured the two pilots, but the rebel command said the plane
crashed, killing all eight people aboard.
Capt. Rosa Pasos, a Defense Ministry spokesman, said the
“counterrevolutionary supply plane” was shot down at 10 Monday
morning between El Portillon and Palo Blanco in Nueva Segovia
province, 105 miles north of Managua. The pilot and co-pilot were
seized by soldiers.
Pasos gave no further details, but a military source said, “For
the moment, we do not know their names, or their nationality, or if
they were wounded or escaped injury; but we can assure you that
they were captured.”
The source, who asked that he not be identified, added 1 “We do
not know what the plane was carrying, but one can suppose that it
was weapons, food and medicine.”
In Tegucigalpa, Honduras, the rebel Nicaraguan Democratic
Force issued a communique saying a C-47 carrying supplies to its
guerrillas developed mechanical problems and crashed Monday,
killing all eight crewmen. The U.S.-built plane was destroyed by
flames, and rebel ground units buried the victims, according to
the communique.
The crash occurred in Jinotega province, which adjoins Nueva
Segovia, it said.
Earthquake hits islands near Japan
TOKYO (AP) A strong earthquake hit a series of small
islands near Okinawa in southern Japan early this morning, the
Central Meteorological Agency reported.
Itsaid the quake registered 6.1 on the Richter scale, adding that
there was no danger of tidal waves.
The agency said the quake occurred at 4:04 a.m. and was
centered about 30 miles beneath the sea near Amami Oshima, a
small island 336 miles southwest of Tokyo.
Also feeling the temblor were nearby Okino Erabu island, and,
with lesser effect, the city of Nago on Okinawa island, 482 miles
southwest of Tokyo.
The Richter scale measures ground motion as recorded on
seismographs. A reading of 6 is considered a severe quake.
Mulroney promises new tax breaks
TORONTO (AP) Conservative leader Brian Mulroney, enjoy
ing a huge lead over Liberal Prime Minister John Turner one
week before national elections, promised yesterday to spend $3.2
billion on new programs and tax breaks over the next 2 x k years
without increasing Canada’s public debt.
“We plan to finance these investments through a reduction in
government overhead expenses, program reallocation and tax
reform," Mulroney said in a speech to 1,500 business executives at
a downtown hotel.
“And we will achieve our targets without affecting existing
social programs,” he said.
By making public his cost estimates, the Progressive Conserva
tive candidate fulfilled a pledge he had made at a news conference
on July 9, the day the election was called. Since then, Turner has
been criticizing his opponent daily for keeping the figures a
secret.
If elected on Sept. 4, Mulroney said he plans to allocate between
$3OO million and $5OO million (in Canadian dollars) to new
spending or targeted tax relief programs during the current fiscal
year ending March 31.
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Teacher training:
U.S.
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON A national certification test
for teachers was recommended yesterday by an
education consultant', who also said that as many
as half of the nation’s teacher training programs
should be shut down.
The current process of teacher preparation is “a
mess,” said Emily Feistritzer, head of the Nation
al Center for Education Information.
“We really have not been paying a whole lot of
attention to how we select, train and certify
teachers,” she said. .
She urged a national board to establish mini
mum standards and prepare a certification test
for teachers, the highlighting of good teacher
education schools, and the closing of many teacher
training programs that accept “anybody and
everybody” without entrance or exit require
ments.
“There are a lot of colleges in this country where
you can show up with a high school diploma and a
checkbook, and get out the other end with a
'Love Boat'
By JERRY BUCK
AP Television Writer
LOS ANGELES - ABC’s “The
Love Boat” cruised to a Nielsen
ratings victory while the three-net
work coverage of the Republican
convention sank to the bottom, ap
parently the lowest-rated political
convention ever, but not the least
watched.
The ratings for the GOP sessions
in Dallas which lacked suspense,
J?B>Pl£ who watch®
THE LCME ■gCAT
ON TV LAST WEEK:
/IH-.f MtLUOM \
\ HOUSEHOLDS/
educator preparation programs
or as the networks call it, “enter
tainment value” fell behind those
of the Democratic convention in
San Francisco in July.
The four-day convention was seen
in an average 16.3 million homes
each night for all three networks,
while Thursday night’s appearance
of President Reagan reached 19.1
million homes. The Democratic
convention had a nightly household
average of 17.2 million homes
The highest-rated night
JPeopiE UMd WATCHED
the ■republican
ON TV LAST WEEK §
( Wallace p. Rump, \ §
\ELTIERVILLE, 5. DAKOTA/ \
bachelor’s degree,” the head of the private educa
tion consulting operation charged at a morning
news conference yesterday.
Keith Geiger, vice president of the National
Education Association, the nation’s largest teach
er organization, said later that his group is also
concerned about the proliferation of small colleges
with low standards.
Geiger said his group “has problems” with the
proposal for a national competency test, pre
ferring to see standards set by each state. But he
complimented Feistritzer’s study, saying she has
“highlighted many problems and offered solu
tions.”
As to shutting down a large number of teacher
education programs, Geiger said, the NEA would
like to see all teachers’ colleges have to meet some
standard for accreditation, which many do not
currently do.
Feistritzer questioned the need for all 1,287
colleges offering education courses, commenting ■
that this number has increased by more than 100
since 1973, even though the number of students
entering education has decreased.
torpedoes convention
‘a mess,' consultant says
NBC’s coverage of Thursday night,
when Reagan spoke. It was 39th out
of 58 shows. ABC’s Thursday cover
age was 41st and CBS’s Thursday
coverage was 44th. Three other
nights of coverage were among the
five lowest-rated shows of the week.
ABC won the week ended Aug. 26,
with “The Love Boat” as highest
rated show. ABC had a network
average of 10.6 in the A.C. Nielsen
Co. survey. NBC was second with
9.0 and CBS was third with 8.8. The
networks say this means that in an
average prime-time minute 10.6
percent of the TV homes were tuned
to ABC.
Arnold Becker, CBS vice presi
dent of national television research,
said the Republican convention ap
peared to be the lowest-rated politi
cal convention ever covered by the
networks. He said all of the data
was not yet available for a defini
tive comparison.
Even though-the ratings are low
er, it will have a larger television
audience than some conventions in
the past. This is because a ratings
point now represents more homes.
Becker attributed the low ratings
to two factors: there was no sus
pense about the outcome of the
convention and television viewers
have more choices than in the past.
“In the middle age of television,
when the competition to network
Offering education courses is an economic bene
fit to the schools, she said, because the classes are
less costly than engineering, for example, but the
student pays the same tuition.
As many as one-third to one-half of the teacher
education programs offered in American colleges
should be shut down summarily, she commented.
“I just don’t think we need them all,” she said.
Asked if she would describe them as diploma
mills, she responded that “that’s a pejorative
term, but it does capture the essence of the
process.”
She was generally complimentary of large pub
licly supported schools offering teaching degrees,
noting that these institutions make up only 17
percent of all schools offering education pro
grams, but produce half of the nation’s teachers.
The best of these institutions should be identified
and'highlighted, she said, so good students can be
directed to the best source of learning.
“Higher salaries, status and prestige for teach
ers will .not be forthcoming until we are more
selective about who we let teach,” she said.
television were independent star
tions located essentially in larger
cities, those independent stations
always did well during the conven
tions,” he said. “Nowadays, you
don’t have to be in a big city to have
all those choices, so it is very easy
to escape the conventions.
“When you mix those business
facts into the circumstance that the
Republican convention was not a
hotly contested one, and therefore
did not have entertainment value,
it’s not surprising that not very
many people watched.”
Becker pointed out that the com
bined network ratings for Thurs
day, 22.8, were about.what a single
top-rated show would get in the fall.
NBC’s rerun of the first part of its
“V” miniseries was second in the
ratings and ABC’s new summer
series “Call To Glory” was third.
Others in the Top 10: “60 Min
utes,” CBS, fourth; “Matt-Hous
ton,” ABC, fifth; “The A-Team,”
ABC, sixth; the ABC movie “And
Justice for All,” seventh; “Alice,”
CBS, eighth; and ABC’s “Webster”
and CBS’ “The Jeffersons,” tied for
ninth.
The lowest-rated show of the
week was once again NBC’s “Sum
mer Sunday, USA.”
CBS retained its lead among the
evening news shows, with ABC sec
ond and NBC third.
• • o • • • • ® • • ® • • • • • • ••••••••••••••
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These important resource materials may a
be picked up anytime from, the
Student Assistance & Information
Center
For personalized help, contact the Student
Counselors in this office 4 pm - midnight M-F or
noon to 8 pm S-S
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Aug. 24
1984/85 STUDBNT HANDBOOK
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The Daily Collegian Wednesday, Aug. 29, 1984—11
Aug. 31
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