Monday, November 8. 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Nation/World
Section A · Page 5
Kansans believe in creation, poll says
But the majority disagrees with Board of Education
The Associated Press
WICHITA — A majority of Kansans do not doubt God's hand in the creation of humans, but a majority also believe the state's schoolchildren should study evolution and be tested on it, according to a new poll.
The poll, conducted by The Wichita Engle and the Kansas City Star, surveyed 604 people Oct. 22:26. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus a percentage points.
The survey found that far more people disagree than agree with the Kansas Board of Education's decision in August to eliminate state testing on the theory of evolution.
Fifty-two percent said they disagree with the board's decision to omit questions on the broad theory of evolution on state assessment tests.
Thirty-two percent said they strongly or somewhat agreed with the board's decision. The rest were neutral or unsure.
The poll forecasts a contentious board election next fall when five seats are up for grabs — including those of four of the six members who voted to de-emphasize evolution.
More than half of poll respondents — 52 percent — said they would be more likely to vote in the next board election because
of the evolution decision. And of those who disagreed with the board, 64 percent said they were more likely to vote.
"At least people know there's a school board around now," said
More than 80 percent of those polled believe dinosaurs existed millions of years ago, and 65 percent believe sea creatures developed into land animals. But many do not think that humans evolved.
Mary Douglass Brown, of Wichita, voted for the change and is up for re-election.
Forty-five percent of poll respondents believe that God created human beings pretty much as they are today and that creation occurred within the past 10,000 years.
"I believe that the Lord God created everything, just like the Bible says," said Gary Corwin, 48, an auctioneer from Buhler who sides with the board's move. "I don't think we came from apes."
It's that belief that troubles most people who oppose the evolution theory, said Eugenie Scott of the Berkeley, Calif., National Center for Science Education, which advocates teaching evolution.
"It goes to the meaning and purpose of life," Scott said. "I think many Americans believe that somehow they are less special to God if they evolved from nonhuman animals."
"I believe there is a God that's in control of creation. I've never hung up on how he did it." Calcote said.
Victor Calcote, pastor of Epworth United Methodist Church in Wichita, sees no conflict between religion and evolution.
Despite his belief in human evolution, Calcote supports the board's action, saying local districts should have control of their schools.
Denver homeless sleep in fear of violence
The Associated Press
DENVER- In a city where Jack Kerouac made the hobo life famous decades ago, a series of murders and beatings has transient sleeping with their gloves off so they can grab their knives to defend themselves.
Others have packed the Denver Rescue Mission — not to escape the cold, but to sleep without fear.
In recent weeks, five homeless men have been killed and at least two others severely beaten. Police have blamed some of the violence on mall rats — groups of young men and women who gather near the trendy downtown shopping strip known as the 16th Street Mall. Many, like the victims, are homeless.
Last week, police arrested seven young men, all between the ages of 16 and 21, and charged them with assault and robbery in attacks on a street musician and a homeless man. Two also are suspected in one of the murders.
They may get a sort of high or thrill by beating up people, and homeless are an easy target, police Lt. Judith Will said.
Authorities began cracking down on crime in the area when the first body was found in September. They drive their police motorcycles through the teens' hangouts, question them and arrest them for minor offenses, like spitting on the sidewalk.
An anonymous donor has contributed a $100,000 reward for arrests in the five beating deaths.
Some of the bodies were found in the still-seedy neighborhood where historians conduct a Jack Kerouac tour, an area made famous by the benik artist 'On the Road'. It's a few blocks from the mall — a 13-block strip of high-class stores that
has drawn an increasing number of visitors since last year's opening of the Denver Pavilion's shopping center.
Most visitors seem oblivious to the mall rats' presence. But the people who work and live there are very aware, said Yvonne Wolf, whose horse-drawn cab route goes past one of their hangouts, a below-the-street-level concrete open space called Skylark Park.
The Rescue Mission estimates 50 percent of the city's homeless have mental health problems, and the mail rats likely are no different — plus, they are aggressive.
"They're mouthy." Wolf said.
"I stand with my back to the bus sign so that if they attack me at least I might get a look at their faces before I go down," he said.
"Don't they know we are real people?" asked Bill Dennis, a homeless 59-year-old Navy veteran.
Paper says FBI files link Cuban agents, freed Puerto Ricans
HARTFORD, Comm. — The Puerto Rican nationalists offered clemency by President Clinton were members of two groups with ties to Cuban intelligence agents, The Hartford Courant reported.
The Associated Press
In a story in yesterday's editions, the newspaper said FBI files on a robbery of a Wells Fargo armored car in West Hartford document Cuba's support for the Puerto Rican independence movement. The contents of the files have not been disclosed until now, The Courant said.
The FBI monitored conversations and meetings between Cuban intelligence agents and members of the group Los Macheteros, Spanish for The Cane Cutters.
"Numerous court-authored interceptions of conversations ... have determined that the Cubans support and direct the Macheteros at a firsthand level," the FBI said in a confidential memo.
In September, President Clinton freed 11 jailed nationalists, members of Los Macheteros or the FALN, the Spanish acronym for the Armed Forces of National Liberation.
The FALN has claimed responsibility for numerous bombings in the United States.
None of the prisoners offered clemency were directly involved in violent acts, Clinton said, and he acted on human rights activists' arguments that the prisoners had paid their debt by serving an average of 19 years in jail.
White House spokesman Jim Kennedy, asked whether Cuban support for the nationalists was considered during deliberations on the clemency offer, said decisions about clemency are confidential.
Filiberto Ojeda Rios, a wanted Macheteros leader who has been in hiding in Puerto Rico for years, angrily denied any ties to Cuba during an interview with Puerto Rican radio journalist Luis Penchei.
Luis M. Fernandez, representative of the Cuban Interests Section, which serves as Havana's de facto embassy in Washington, also dismissed the link. The office was closed Saturday.
"I have no information on that," Fernandez said. "In my opinion, it is more science fiction than anything else."
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