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Guest column: Should UT lower summer tuition?
THE DAILY TEXAN Thursday, June 17, 2010
TODAY
Serving the University of Texas at Austin community since 1900
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‘Cathedral’ creator loses battle
KVRX presents... SPEAK, The Frontier Brothers, The Eastern Sea and Marmalakes at The Parish beginning at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $9 at the door.
he was fascinated by the antiquity and mystery of the plaque and wondered to himself, “Where are those ladies now?” Thirty to 40 percent of the cathedral has already been dismantled,
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“Breakfast at Tiffany’s” shows at the Paramount Theatre beginning at 9:25 p.m. Tickets cost $9 at the box office.
Today in history In 1775
American revolutionaries take a stand against the British army in the Battle of Bunker Hill.
In 1972
O.J. Simpson is arrested for the murder of his wife and her friend after evading police in a white Bronco.
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Quote to note “The day after [you first watch ‘Anchorman’] you’re already calling your friends ‘pirate hookers.’ It made its way into popular culture so quickly, and it’s still so relevant to so many people that I was like, ‘I want to see a theater of mustachioed people drinking scotch.’” — Greg MacLennan “Action Pack” member LIFE&ARTS PAGE 4
TRY OUT FOR THE TEXAN! We are currently hiring in all departments: • News Reporters • Entertainment Writers • Features Writers • Photographers • Columnists • Sports Writers • Designers • Copy Editors • Multimedia Reporters (video/audio) • Comics Artists Come pick up an application in the basement of HSM and sign up for tryouts.
THROUGH JUNE 23
Photos by Peyton McGee | Daily Texan Staff
Above, Vincent “Junk King” Hannemann stands in front of the remains of the work of art he spent 21 years creating, the “Cathedral of Junk.” Hannemann was forced to downsize his creation because of anonymous complaints regarding safety regulations. Below, the entrance sign to the Cathedral of Junk remains despite the significant downsizing of the structure. Hannemann continues to remove pieces of the cathedral to comply with the city’s requests.
Artist disassembles structure after failure to comply with city By Leah Wise Daily Texan Staff What was once an innovative and remarkable three-story “cathedral” made of unusual objects such as bicycles, hubcaps, old plaques and stained-glass walls now lays in an array of smaller structures and piles scattered across Vincent Hannemann’s backyard. Hannemann, creator of the “Cathedral of Junk,” has officially closed his backyard wonderland in South Austin to all visitors because of anonymous complaints regarding safety violations. Many citizens of Austin have been so fascinated by the structure that Hannemann has even held weddings, plays and birthdays at the cathedral for free. The Cathedral of Junk is a large
construction of different items that Hannemann has collected over time and consists of different rooms, two of which he has labeled “The Throne Room” and “Surf Canada.” The cathedral has been a major hot spot for both tourists from all over the world and local visitors for many years, and was considered a large part of the “Keep Austin Weird” cultural movement. “I think it’s ridiculous they’re making him take it down. It’s a travesty, and a step backwards for the city,” said Red Wassenich, who originally coined the phrase “Keep Austin Weird.” Wassenich said he hopes this isn’t the end of the Cathedral of Junk. Hannemann said he has continually added elements to the cathedral for 21 years, and admir-
State commission proposes changes to align with EPA The proposed changes come By Nolan Hicks just two days after the EPA told Daily Texan Staff The Texas Commission on En- Chevron Corp. and Garland vironmental Quality made pub- Power & Light to bypass state lic a series of proposed chang- officials and directly apply for es to the flexible-permitting pro- federal clean-air permits. Travis County Democratic cess, which has come under fire Party chairman from the EnviAndy Brown atronmental Protacked Gov. Rick tection Agency. Perry’s environThe proposed mental record. changes align “Perry has the permitting Perry has had the process for ma- opportunity to act and had the opportunity to act and jor polluters hasn’t, and our air hasn’t, and our in Texas more closely with quality has suffered.” air quality has suffered,” he federal regula— Andy Brown said. tions. The EPA The Bill had threatened Travis County White and Perto take over the Democratic chairman ry gubernatoTexas permitrial campaigns ting process bebegan exchangcause of noning barbs over compliance. TCEQ spokesman Terry Claw- the threatened takeover soon son told The Associated Press on after the EPA announced it Wednesday that the announce- would federalize the permitment was not directly related to ting process that allows large entities to pollute. the EPA’s actions this week. Perry attacked the agency’s de“It’s certainly an attempt to satisfy the EPA’s concerns about mands that the TCEQ more closethe flex permits, but not neces- ly comply with EPA regulations sarily in response to yesterday,” EPA continues on page 2 he said.
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INSIDE: Read the editor’s take on the cathedral’s closure on page 3 ers of the cathedral donated most of the objects that made up the astonishingly large structure. Hannemann’s favorite object that went into the cathedral is an old plaque he came across that reads, “Donated by The Women’s Golf Association 1959.” He said
UT cameras track down drivers with ticket debt By Collin Eaton Daily Texan Staff UT Parking and Transportation Services officials are finding that the number of citations recorded in recent months are about equal to what they were years ago, since the department has mounted cameras with the ability to scan license plates on cars with outstanding citations. PTS employs cutting-edge technology to collect on unpaid tickets — which come to more than $550,000 total — left by past parking violators, and one PTS director said she sees the office’s duty as protecting permit-holders through the energetic enforcement of rules with regard to those who snub signs and permits. The department uses a Canadian-built camera system called “AutoVu” to recognize the license plates of cars with outstanding parking tickets. The cameras are mounted on two sides of a pick-up truck that is driven around campus lots and through University parking garages at least once a day. Some cars belonging to repeat offenders are outfitted with an immovable “boot” that PTS removes after drivers pay their fines. “When we first put the [AutoVu] system on campus, the number of boots that we were finding increased about 30 to 45 percent,” PTS manager Charles Smith said. “But that only lasted for several months because [once] people figured out what was going on, they moved to different places. If you’re hitting one area, they’ll move somewhere else — it doesn’t stay consistent. What we’re finding with the camera system now is that the number of boots per day, per week and per month is only a little higher than it was when we were [recording citations] manually.” Several times a day, a red light blinks to life when its camera alerts UT’s parking enforcement officers to a license plate with an outstanding citation, and if a plate is on the PTS system “boot list,” the officer slaps a boot on the car’s tires. But the number of hits the cameras record every day has decreased since
‘I’m just crazy about Tiffany’s!’
In 1994
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Arrests of five operatives are made, beginning what would become one of the biggest political scandals in American history — Watergate.
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Oil moratorium met with resistance By Nolan Hicks Daily Texan Staff Republicans from the Texas delegation attacked President Barack Obama’s continuation of the moratorium on drilling in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday. The moratorium was put in place May 27, after an explosion sank BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil platform, unleashing a torrent of oil into the Gulf of Mexico — now estimated at up to 60,000 barrels per day — from a damaged oil well. Using the government’s 60,000-barrel-a-day figure, the spill rate is roughly equal to an Exxon Valdez spilling into the Gulf of Mexico every four days. Congressional Republicans, who announced Saturday that they were launching an effort to repeal the moratorium at the Republican convention in Dallas, complained the policy would do more economic harm to an area already devastated by the oil spill. “The deepwater drilling moratorium will hurt our economy, cost Texans jobs and is a blow to our national security because it makes the U.S. even more dependent on foreign oil,” said Sean Brown, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, who is the ranking member on the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Drew Hammill, spokesman for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, wouldn’t offer a comment about whether or not Pelosi would allow such legislation to move to the floor for a vote.
Gerald Herbert | Associated Press
A pelican sits covered in oil at Queen Bess Island in Barataria Bay, just off the Gulf of Mexico in Plaquemines Parish, La., on June 5. “The hearings yesterday made clear that while BP caused this problem, other companies are all using the same response plan, and CEOs admitted no company has the ability to deal with another such spill right now,” Hammill said, defending the moratorium. Gov. Rick Perry’s office estimates that as many as 46,000 jobs could be at risk because of the moratorium on drilling, Perry spokeswoman Lucy Nashed said. “It’s important to everyone that these [rigs] operate in a safe manner, but it’s vitally important to thousands of Texas families that we get these rigs back into operation as quickly [as] possible,” Nashed said. Perry campaign spokesman Alejandro Garcia said Perry
was focused on making sure that the oil is cleaned up as soon as possible. A congressional report released by the committee cast doubt whether other oil companies were better prepared than BP to respond to a Deepwater Horizon-like disaster. The report said disaster response plans from Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., Shell Oil Co. and ConocoPhillips were almost identical to BP’s plan. “With the news yesterday that the Exxon Mobil oil spill response plan includes 40 pages dedicated to how it will deal with the media and only five pages for how to deal with protecting resources from an oil spill, we have to be
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