Brown and White Vol. 104 no. 35

              the brown and white lehigh university s student newspaper founded in 1894 vo l 04 no 35 friday march 21 1997 all the lehigh news first phi delts to go dry by year 2000 by dennis zehner sports editor starting in the summer of 2000 phi delta theta fraternity will be a dry house meaning that no alcohol can be consumed anywhere on the premises the decision was made by phi delt's national general council after a meeting last summer at which the issue was discussed representatives from the 180 local chapters voted on the rule change opposing it by a narrow margin the general council's final decision however was to enact the proposed new rules brothers say they did not know about the rules change until they returned from spring break many feel as if the national orga nization made this decision behind their backs andrew carroll 99 phi delt's representative to last sum mer's meeting said the decision does not reflect the general will of the fraternity obviously we're all pretty much opposed to it carroll said we feel that we were not involved in the decision chris zacharda greek affairs coordinator says phi delta theta will not probably not be the last house at lehigh to become dry there are other groups that even now have expressed an interest in following the lead that phi delt has established zacharda said zacharda also said he expects phi delt brothers to receive the decision well i think they're scared because it's something new something that they haven't had to do zacharda said probably they realized that the idea behind it is a good one but nobody wants to be first however many of the broth ers don't have such a positive outlook on the situation it separates us carroll said it makes us different from the other houses they have some thing we don't have they have an advantage the rule change will not affect any of the current brothers or any members of this spring's pledge class however phi delt says it will begin to feel the effects of the policy immediately former senator discusses alcohol by patrick doherty news editor former united states senator and 1972 democratic presidential candidate george mcgovern spoke in baker hall tuesday about the problem of alcohol abuse mcgovern who did not make an issue of alcohol abuse dur ing his political career said his interest in the problem was more recent and more personal he became involved in the issue after the death of his daughter terry from alcohol abuse in december 1994 mcgovern learned of his daughter's death just before christmas that year he had returned from a restaurant with his wife who had gone to bed while mcgovern was sitting down stairs around midnight the doorbell rang i was startled that someone would ring the doorbell at mid night mcgovern said i thought it was one of our four daugh ters coming home for christmas early in fact the visitors at the door were a police officer and a clergyman who had come to tell mcgovern that his daughter had been found dead in the snow and had been drinking mcgovern said his daughter had struggled with alcoholism for almost her entire adult life and had been in and out of vari b w photo by ashley merlin former senator and presidential candidate george mcgovern talked about the danger of alcohol abuse speaker discusses health issues by kevin schregel news writer aids activist river houston spoke on alcohol abuse poor self-image and other problems at the diamond theatre in the zoellner arts center wednesday houston began with the subject of alco holism and alcohol abuse she related a story about herself that took place when she was 14 years old to demonstrate the dangers of abus ing alcohol while at a party houston drank heavily and at some time during the night she asked for some aspirin but the guys who had brought her to the party gave her barbiturates she quickly passed out and while she was unconscious she was raped and beaten apparently she was so deeply unconscious and so badly beaten that her assailants thought she was dead she was dumped in a ditch on the side of the street naked in the middle of winter in february houston said the only reason that she is alive today is that the next morning a dog found her and stood over her body until someone came to see what was going on houston stressed the fact that alcohol is just as much a drug as marijuana or any other controlled substance and that it is especially dangerous because it is not taken as seriously as other drugs are according to houston up until 15 years ago she could say with total certainty that she was an alcoholic now she has been clean and sober for 1 2 years she realized that when she stopped drinking so many more options opened up to her houston said that alcohol itself is not bad provided it is not abused alcohol like television can be a good thing when used in moderation she said the problem according to houston is that people don't just change on a w.him it usual ly takes a specific event to get someone to significantly change a part of their lifestyle if people could just see the opportunities that open up to them when they stop abusing alco hol it would be so much easier for most alco holics to stop she said the other major topic that houston dis cussed was the importance of image in american society she blames television and magazines for the image problem of america she said sec phi delt page a9 see mcgovern page a9 see health page a9 bwprel t*il 4 ;|, '-' y i__b_*sh r"l buzzer-beater gives women's basketball the patriot league championship see pages cl-c4 sports al6-a2o men's lacrosse al b wrestling a2o students spend spring break getting away from lehigh see pages alo-all news al-all panhel a3 math lecture a5 police briefs a7 your favorite space creatures have come back to a theater near you see page 81 lifestyle 81-b8 choir b2 horoscope b3 look who's talking b5 not just a face b7 the longest continuous war was the thirty years war fought in europe from 1618 to 1648 source the 1997 guinness book of world records