6A • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
FRIDAY,JANUARY31,2003
Alliances strive to inform about issue of living wage ordinance
By Cal Creek
ccreak@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
SPORTS COMMENTARY
Two local groups want voters to consider the living wage when voting in the city election on April 1.
The Kaw Valley Living Wage Alliance works in conjunction with the KU Living Wage Alliance in an attempt to raise local awareness among students and
Lawrence citizens about a living wage ordinance.
"A living wage, empirically does reduce poverty, and that is a good thing" said Mark Horowitz. KU Living Wage Alliance member and Springfield, Mass., doctoral candidate.
A living wage ordinance would require companies, businesses and firms that receive tax breaks from the city to pay their workers at least 89.39 per hour
plus health benefits.
This wage represents the number required to keep a family of three 50 percent above the poverty line.
There are 77 cities in the nation with living wage ordinances.
Both alliances have worked to raise awareness about a living wage and voting in city elections by providing information downtown and on campus.
"A lot of times student bodies have been rather fickle when it comes to voting." Horowitz said. "We want to make sure students confront the candidates with the living wage issue."
Of the 16 city commission candidates, Dennis "Boog" Highberger, Mike Rundle and David Schauner have all said they supported a living wage ordinance.
about the possible effects of a living wage ordinance.
Other candidates are hesitant
"Generally we have to be careful that we don't create some unintended circumstances," commission candidate Lynn Goodell said. "I'm not convinced it's the answer."
While Goodell didn't want to see Lawrence residents take $4 and $5 jobs, he said he was concerned that businesses could get priced out of the labor force.
Greg Douros, Rundle's campaign manager and St. Louis graduate student, said he saw significance in the living wage ordinance issue.
"It's going to have a really important impact in Lawrence," Douros said. "It's going to make Lawrence a better place."
The city commission primary is on Feb.25.
— Edited by Ryan Wood
Calendar
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Richard Johnson, dean of student life addressed concerns raised by University Council members, assuring the council that the new date would not interfere with academic adviser for the spring semester.
Johnson and Margula appealed to the council to strage the date because they said they considered the situ-肌 of having only one home
football game in October a chance occurrence not likely to happen again.
The football schedule originally had two games in October 2003, but the Big 12 Conference moved the second game for television purposes and because of a conflict with a NASCAR event.
Kit Brauer, Denver junior and student senator, proposed an alternative ending in homeschooling with another athletic event, like a soccer game held in Memorial Stadium.
"Homecoming isn't just about football," said Elissa Hudson, co-director for the homecoming steering committee and a Pitsburg junior, "but homecoming is a very traditional thing. When you're trying to build something like this up, I don't think you can make such a giant change before it is well established in the first place."
A 22-to-15 vote, with three abstentions, determined the council's new decision.
—Edited by Ryan Wood
Program
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
showed intense passion and interest in the program, said Donald Fixico, director of the Indigenous Nations Studies Program.
Since Naramore was 14 years old she new she was going to be a lawyer who fought for indigenous people's rights. She grew up in a commune environment In Lawrence that she said was similar to the American Indian way of living. Her family lived on a farm north of town and lived off the crops. He grew. Naramore described her family as subsistence farmers and said this made her appreciate the land and develop her spiritual relationship with the earth.
As a teenager, Narnimore met an American Indian girl at school and became friends with her. She went with her friend's family across the country to different powwow sites summer. Narnimore said this gave her a unique insight into the way American Indians live. The insight she has gained in her
friendships with American Indians will help her in her career, Naramore said.
"Because I understand the white culture and the Indian culture I can be a bridge between the two," Naramore said. "I did receive a unique position because I was a friend, not an anthropologist or academic going into study them."
In Finland Naramore will study the land and water rights of the indigenous people and how the Finnish government has helped retain the culture and language of the Saami. During her trip, Naramore will not only focus on the aspects of the Saami's culture but also she will be comparing how the Finnish government has interacted with the Saami people compared to the United States government's interaction with the American Indians.
At the University of Oulu in Finland, Naramore will take four classes that will focus on all aspects of the Saumi people, such as identity, self-representation and traditional indigenous rights. A student mentor, called a kummi, will help acclimate
Naramore to the culture and the Finnish university. In exchange, a Finnish student will study at the University of Kansas and have a KU student be his mentor.
Fixico said he was eager to see what Naramore learned and experienced when she returns from Finland. The comparison of governments' interactions with indigenous people around the globe is a new area of research, and the insight Naramore can bring back to the Indigenous Nations program will benefit the entire program, Fixico said.
"Hopefully her trip will excite graduate students." Fixico said. In a way the trip is not just about the individual but for the whole program."
David Wiley, office of study abroad program coordinator, said Naramore going to Finland opened the door for more KU students to study in Finland, which has not been popular in the past, despite an opportunity to send many students there.
"This is a fantastic place that has been overlooked," Wiley said.
Edited by Amber Byarlay
Belgium recognizes gay marriages
The Associated Press
BRUSSELS Belgium -- Belgium became the second nation in the world to officially recognize gay marriages yesterday, when parliament backed the move with a majority.
The Netherlands approved
In the House of Representatives, the bill prevailed in a 91-22 vote with nine abstentions, with the opposition Christian Democrat CdH and the extreme
same-sex marriages two years ago, but unlike its northern neighbor Belgium did not go as far to allow such couples to adopt children.
Belgium already was one of several European nations, including Denmark, Hungary, France and Portugal, which have laws recognizing same-sex unions.
right Vlaams Blok voting against. The bill was already approved by the Senate.
Drought CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
responsible for working with all water-related agencies to formulate a state water plan that could deal with issues such as conservation and drought.
"Yep, that's us"
Brandon Rakar/Kansas
Last spring, John Lomas maps caught the attention of the Kansas Water Office.
The maps were used to highlight areas of drought throughout the state.
John and Karen Pendleton stand in the middle of their perennial and semievergreen labyrinth on their farm east of Lawrence, Karen Pendleton said it normally was muddy in the winter. "The fact that we can walk out here shows we're in a drought," she said.
The research analyst for Kansas Applied Remote Sensing Solutions at the University of Kansas takes satellite data and creates maps of vegetation. His maps use plant greenness and surface temperature to determine plant condition.
"We started sending them the maps every week so they get a better idea of how they were doing throughout the state." said Lomas, assistant research scientist at KU.
"We had one of those at the Kansas State Fair and people would point and say 'yep that's us.' They were looking at the lit-
Frank Ernst, environmental scientist for the Kansas Water Office, set up a display of the vegetation maps at the Kansas State Fair last September.
the pixels. The maps are very reflective," Ernst said.
Tom Lowe, environmental scientist for the Kansas Water Office, is in the process of revising the Governor's Drought Response Team.
Currently, the plan focuses on long-term drought conditions instead of droughts that can develop in the shorter term.
Spring outlook
As for this coming spring, the long-term outlook for the next three months calls for normal precipitation, Knapp said.
"We would really, really like
for that to happen because everyone is so dry," Knapp said.
Pendleton predicts if rainfall this year is consistent with last year's totals, some farms will be auctioned off, a few farmers might retire earlier then planned and some younger farmers might look for a job in town.
"That's huge because farmers don't consider it an occupation. They consider it a way of life." Pendleton said. "If you change that way of life it can be pretty traumatic."
Edited by Michelle Burhenn
The Associated Press
Shoe bomber sentenced to life
BOSTON — Richard Roid, the self-described member of al-Qaida, lashed out at the U.S. government yesterday before he was sentenced to life in prison for trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic jetliner with explosives hidden in his shoes.
Raid, a 29 year-old British citizen who converted to Islam eight years ago, angrily denounced American foreign policy against Islamic countries.
"Your government has sponsored the torture of Muslims in Iraq, and Turkey, and Jordan and Syria with their money and weapons," he said. Reid had faced 60
Passengers and crew members overpowered Reid, using seat belts and their own belts to strap him to his seat. Two doctors who were passengers injected him with sedatives, and the flight was diverted to Boston.
When Reid pleaded guilty last October, he said he was a member of al-Qaida, pledged his support to terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and declared himself an
years to life in prison for trying to down the American Airlines flight bound from Paris to Miami a little more than a year ago. Prosecutors said there was enough plastic explosives in his shoes to blow a hole in the fuselage and kill all 197 people aboard.
But defense lawyers said he did not try to blow up the plane to wage war against America, but to defend Islam from attacks by the United States.
"Basically I got on the plane with a bomb. Basically I tried to ignite it. Basically, yeah, I intended to damage the plane," Reid said.
"He well knew that he would cause untold pain and grief even if only a few people were killed, but he says that this was outweighed in his mind by his firm belief ... that this country in recent years has caused the deaths of millions of Muslims," his lawyers wrote.
enemy of the United States.