Western Front - 1982 October 12

              INSIDE! MY 'Favorite Year'
FAVORITE is likeable flick
YEAR —page 11
It's Bowser
vs. Goltz
—page 3
Western Washington University
Tuesday, October 12,1982
Vol. 74, No. 49
Food tap
removal
to trigger
session?
By MITCH EVICH
Yet another legislative special
session "is a pretty sure thing" if
voters follow Sen. Jim McDer-mott's
lead and yank the sales tax
off food, a spokesman for the gov­ernor
said Friday.
That also may mean more cuts
for higher education.
Kay Heimbach, Gov. John Spel-lman's
assistant press secretary,
said Spellman several times has
indicated the cutoff in revenue
generated by the sales tax on food
and the business and occupation
tax would make another budget-balancing
session unavoidable.
"He's been saying it several
times now that this is what will
have to happen," Heimbach said.
"It's a pretty sure thing."
The drive to revoke the sales tax
on food began almost as soon as
the Republican-dominated Legis­lature
imposed it during last
April's special session. Initiative
-435, sponsored by McDermott ID-Seattle),
would remove the sales
tax on food and the business and
occupation tax and replace them
with a tax on corporate profits.
Some of Initiative 435' s critics,
however, fear that its passage will
send the controversy straight to
the courts—and legislators
straight to Olympia. House higher
education committee chairman
Delores Teutsch (R-Kirkland) said
last month she sees legal action
on behalf of opponents of a cor­porate
profits tax as almost
certain.
But according to the latest fig­ures
released by the State
Department of Revenue, even
without a test of the corporate
profits tax legality, a considerable
deficit will result. The depart­ment
estimates that removing the
sales tax 'on food and the B & O
tax would sap $342 million during
the last six months of the bien-nium,
only $202 million of which
would be replaced by revenue
generated by corporate profits
taxes. (continued on page 2)
PHOTO COURTESY VEHICLE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
The Viking VI—will all cars someday look like this?
Newest 'supercar'
Viking VI Japan bound
By LORI McGRIFF
It flies like an upside down airplane, crashes into
brick walls at 40 mph with walkaway survivors, gets
66 mpg and hits 60 mph in 8.95 seconds.
This world-reknowned "super car" of the 1980s
was built in a small garage at Western.
The Viking VI, built by students and technician's at
Western's Vehicle Research Institute, is on its way to
Japan for a showing at the World Conference on
Automotive Safety.
The car, only one of two entries from the United
States at the Conference scheduled to run Nov. 1-4,
has won national attention for its safety features,
aerodynamics and^uel efficiency.
The Viking VTs identical twin was intentionally
crashed in tests for the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration. Test dummies riding in the-
Viking VI(A) "survived" the 40 mph crash into a brick
wall.
Michael Seal, Western's VRI Director, said most
cars in such tests don't have "survivors" even at 30
mph. Survival means if a person was in the car he
would be able to walk away, Seals said.
After the safety showing, the Viking VI will spend
about one month at Japan's Subaru test center. Sub­aru
is one of the major financers of the Viking test
car program, Seals said. Toyota, Datsun, Ford and
the Department of Transportation also have funded
VRI projects.
Money from the Alcoa Foundation also helped
fund the $200,000 Viking VI project.
Not only is the 1,120-pound car safer than most
cars but it also gets 66 mpg while still meeting all
United States exhaust standards.
The first experimental car to come outof Western
made its debut in 1970 at a national competition for
university-built experimental cars. The Viking I
claimed third place in the competition, which listed
among the 66 competing universities Georgia Tech
and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT).
"The Viking I wasn't very good," Seals said, com­pared
to later models created in the VRI garage
behind Huxley College.
Safety, gas mileage, experimental natural gas car-buretorand
testing of new uses of gravity are only a
few of the territories Western's vehicle research
program have explored.^ : »
The Viking may be the machine of the future, Seals
said. The original patent, on a new use of gravity,
"ground effects," was filed in 1975 by Western, when
the Viking V was built.
These aerodynamics push the car toward the
ground, propelling it with less energy.
No airlift on the car means better gas mileage.
"Ground effects" can either increase or decrease it
"Ground effects" make a car "fly like an airplane
but upside down," Seal said. He said the next Viking
will be emphasizing this gravity push even more,
than the Viking VI. -
Work on the Viking VI began two years ago.
Western grad wins national award
Western journalism graduate
and former Front opinion editor
Edd O'Donnell has won the
national first-place award in the
annual Mark of Excellence com­petition
conducted by The
Society of Professional Journal­ists,
Sigma Delta Chi.
O'Donnell was honored for edi­torial
writing he did for the Front
and the Kent News-Journal in
south King County.
O'Donnell's commentaries
show "understanding and exam­ination
of serious topics..incor­porated
with bright writing," SDX
judges said. —'
His award-winning editorials
dealt with education cutbacks,
draft-dodging and wrongful
accusation for rape, said journal­ism
department chairman R.E.
Ted" Stannard, Jr.
O'Donnell, who graduated last
June and now lives in Texas,
worked as a reporter and stringer
for The Spokane Daily Chronicle,
The Coeur d' Alene (Idaho) Press
and The Fort Lauderdale (Fla.)
Sentinel.
This is the third time in the
past six years that Western jour­nalists
have captured first-place
honors in naitonal SPJ, SDX com­petition.
Klipsun magazine was
named top student magazine in
1976 and Western student Jeff
Porteous was honored for best
non-fiction magazine article in
1980.
O'Donnell qualified for the
award after winning first-prize in
regional, SPJ, SDX competition last
spring. He was one of seven West­ern
journalists who walked away
with top awards at that event,
which covered Washington,
Oregon, Montana, Idaho and
Alaska. .
The Front and Klipsun Maga­zine
were among the regional
winners and both qualified for
the nationals. Only nine such
publications nation-wide were
considered for the top award.
The SPJ, SDX awards are consi­dered
the most prestigous con­test
for student journalism in the
nation.
Other Northwest winners were
the University of Washington
Daily for editorial cartooning and
Oregon State Unversity for televi­sion
documentary.
O'Donnell will formally receive
the prize at the annual SPJ, SCX
convention, slated for mid-
November in Milwaukee.
News professionals from
across the United States will
attend the convention, which is
one of the nation's foremost
gatherings of journalists each*
year: -
Western
dollars
add up
for WSL
By ELAYNE ANDERSON
An estimated 50 to 60 percent
of Western students donated $1
to the Washington Student Lobby
when they registered for fall quar­ter
classes.
Associated Students President
Mark Murphy called it a "good,
strong show of support," and said
" he was pleased with the estimate.
"At the end of last spring my
estimate was higher," Murphy
said. "But over the summer I
began to realize that transfers
and freshmen, who may not have
heard of the WSL, also would be
registering this fall."
The estimate means that prob­ably
more than 4,600 students
supported the WSL. The lobby
was conceived last winter follow­ing
massive budget cuts in higher
education.
The WSL will deploy volunteer
student lobbyists in Olympia in
time for the 1983 legislative ses­sion
to try to protect the interests
of higher education.
Western and Washington State
University are the only four-year
institutions collecting money for
the WSL this fall.
WSU is using an automatic
refundable system, where stu­dents
must ask the cashier to
return their $1 if they choose not
to support the lobby. It's esti­mated
this system will result in a
contribution rate of 93 to 95 per­cent
among WSU students.
The University of Washington
and Central Washington Univer­sity
will start collecting for the
WSL winter quarter.
The Evergreen State College
and Eastern Washington Univer­sity,
which had to restart their
petition drives this quarter after
signatures gathered spring were
declared invalid, also may begin
collecting winter quarter "if
things go as planned," Murphy
said.
All the money collected from
the schools goes Jo the state WSL
(continued on page 2)
Edd O'Donnell