The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 61, No. 11, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 1, 1973 Page: 1 of 8
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Fire breaks out in Baker College; smoke injures officer
by FORREST JOHNSON
Fir© broke out in 311 Baker
Thursday night. The residents,
John Paul Beltran and Rich
Rudd, were out at the time.
Dewey Ferguson discovered
the blaze. "I went across the
hall to borrow a vacuum clean-
er and I smelled something, but
1 couldn't get the door open,"
clue to the worn-out handle.
When the door was finally
opened, smoke rushed out into
the hall. "It made me sick," says
Dewey. He chocked, ran and got
some air, and ran back to help
the other students fight the
fire.
Security had the same prob-
lem. The three officers assigned
had only one oxygen mask be-
tween them. (Bakerman Rick
Jones later brought down his
scuba tank.) "I wouldn't have
gone in except I thought some-
one might be asleep in the
room," said Oficer James David-
son. "I took a breath of what I
thought was air and my lungs
got burned. Things started to
go black about three seconds
after that." Davidson was scar-
cely able to speak hours later.
The students brought in some
fire extinguishers and sprayed
them around liberally in the
smoke. ("You could have had 15
people electrocuted," says Bel-
tran.) The fire hose on the third
floor was broken. Security Of-
ficer Jones went to get the
hose from the fourth floor. It
didn't have enough pressure and
leaked in three places. Then the
valve froze so that no one could
turn it off. Finally, someone
threw it out a window. ("We
have fifteen hoses," says one
Bakerman, "Seven are work-
ing.")
A dog was found in the room
and resuscitated with the oxy-
gen equipment.
Then the fire department
showed up. "They came scream-
ing on campus," says one wit-
ness, "They couldn't find Baker
College, so they kept screaming
but slowed down." They arrived
in time to pump the smoke out
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of the room.
The fire was apparently caus-
ed by a defective cord on a
hair dryer left lying on a bed.
The cord shorted out, setting
the bed on fire. Since the short
was small, none of the circuit
breakers were thrown.
Damage was estimated at
over $100.
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volume 61, number 11
thursday, november 1, 1973
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Officer Davidson gets oxygen offer inhaling smoke.
by JOEL RENNIE
Next week, Millennium '73,
"The World Assemblage to.
Save Humanity", comes to the
Astrodome. Millennium '73 is
the culmination of "Soul Rush",
a whirlwind cross-country pil-
grimage to draw the attention
of the world to Houston, where
the Guru Maharaj Ji will
present his "concrete plan for
establishing* world peace." It is
also billed as "the most sig-
nificant gathering of humanity
in history."
Who is Guru Maharaj Ji?
This question is being asked by
many people and even more
bumper stickers. The guru is,
to quote his own press material,
the Perfect Master of our time,
in the tradition of Krishna,
Moses, Buddha, Christ, and Mo-
hammed. But Guru Maharaj Ji
is better. He is the "most per-
fect incarnation of God ever
to have trod the face of this
planet." Furthermre, the guru
maintains he will succeed where
the Perfect Masters before him
failed, and "end suffering on a
global scale", bringing peace
and harmony to the world for
the next thousand years.
School board candidates appear
by ROBERT MARGOLIS
Three candidates for the
Houston School Board met in
Baker Commons last week to
discuss the issue of this school
board election. They were Dr.
Gurney Pearsall (Incumbent,
Position 6), of the CGS, (Citi-
zens for Good Schools), John
D. Mullins (Position 6), of
CARE, (Concerted Action for
Responsible Education) and
Scott Nelson (Pocition 4) an
independent and Imperial Wiz-
ard of the Texas Fiery Knights
of the Klu Klux Klan.
Dr. Pearsall: Houston is the
only major school district with-
out a system of collective bar-
gaining for higher wages. The
teacher's strike was illegal.
Since that time we have met,
and most of the problems have
been ironed out.
What I think the main thrust
of our campaign here is, is
whether we should move Hous-
ton's public schools in line with
what a child intends to do aft-
er twelve years of imprison-
ment . . . forty-four percent of
all students drop out between
the first and twelfth grade.
Any program that has such a
high failure rate needs over-
hauling . . . What we need is
more individualized education,
such as has been done for
years in parochial schools . . .
The main program my op-
ponent wants to cut out is the
Development of Human Re-
sources program, which is an
eight million dollar Federally
funded grant ... We spend
three-quarters of the national
average per child on our edu-
cation, but as far as standard
of living goes, we are at the
national average. We spend
700 dollars per pupil; San
Francisco spends 2000.
Our schools have not been
remodeled in the last ten years
. . . There are teachers that
are using lesson plans that
have turned yellow with thirty
to forty-five years of use . . .
There has been a tendency for
test scores to become lower
each year. This has been true
in the HISD since 1967. A Rice
professor told me that we were
going through an "illiterate
period." The system itself
should be re-evaluated. Only
50% of the things on these
tests actualy taught in the
classroom.
HISD does not hire the
better quality teachers, those
with master's degrees, for ex-
ample, beo&use' these teachers
demand, more money. So we
have poorer quality teachers in
the name of economy.
We need more para-profes-
sional people in the schools to
do the clerical work that teach-
ers and nurses have to do now.
This is just busy-work, and
wastes the time of the teach-
ers that could be better spent
(Continued on Page 3)
There is a rationale behind
this apparently extravagant
claim: before this age of in-
stant communication and jet
travel, a Master could be rec-
ognized as such by only a rela-
tive handful of people, whereas
the guru, with a coordinated
mass media campaign, plans to
do things in a much more
grandiose manner.
A little background
Guru Maharaj Ji was born
December 10, 1957 in India. He
is the youngest son of the late
Perfect Master Shri Hans Ji
Maharaj, whose spirit the
young guru claims to have in-
herited upon his father's death.
The guru has been a child prod-
igy of sorts, giving discourses
at age two-and-a-half and re-
portedly moving an English-
speaking crowd to tears at the
'age of six. Today the guru is
the head of a religious move-
ment reputed to number six
million.
J J
What it's all about
The central concept of the
guru's teaching is the common
bond of spiritual perfection
which all men share, and the
path to realization of such. The
role of the Perfect Master is
to reveal this knowledge to each
individual person. After one has
had the personal religious ex-'
perience of having his soul re-
vealed to him, he is naturally
attuned to his environment, as
well as himself, and becomes
blissful in his love for his
human brothers and sisters. It
is by giving each human be-
ing this Knowledge that Guru
Maharaj Ji plans to bring peace
to the world.
The Houston festival known
as Millennium '73 is being
staged by Divine Light Mis-
sion Inc., the evangelical and
business arm of the guru's
movement. DLM is a non-profit
organization with some two
hundred - eighty centers in
thirty-seven countries on six
continents. National headquart-
ers for DLM is in Denver, Colo-
rado, where 235 staffers with a
total monthly budget of S60.-
000 coordinate a far-flung em-
pire of associated projects and
organizations. One such project
„is Blue Aquarius, the 5(J-piece
band organized by the guru's
20-year-old brother, Bhole Ji.
Blue Aquarius is an aggrega-
tion of many different musical
styles, its members coming
from such disparate groups as
the Bee Gees and the Peruvian
National Symphony. The band
made its American debut at an
outdoor concert at Miller The-
ater here in Houston last Sep-
tember 30th. They will lie back
in town next week to offer the
musical accompaniment to the
guru's message.
Not accepted by all
The guru, despite his su re?s,
is not without his detractors.
(Continued on Page 8)
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bill fvlton
311 Baker after the fire.
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Jackson, Steve. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 61, No. 11, Ed. 1 Thursday, November 1, 1973, newspaper, November 1, 1973; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245176/m1/1/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.