FRIDAY,OCT.12,2001
NATION
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN 11B
School board's ban of pledge, change of anthem under fire
The Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. — The Madison school board has been swamped with e-mail and phone calls after barring the Pledge of Allegiance and deciding "The Star-Spangled Banner" should be played without its martial lyrics.
Board member Bill Keys said the board was trying to comply with a new state law and protect the rights of students who didn't want to feel compelled to recite their loyalty to "one nation, under God."
Gov. Scott McCallum called the board "oddballs," while a Republican lawmaker proposed cuts to state funding. Parents and others have denounced the action taken earlier this week as
unpatriotic.
Joe Quick, a school representative, said the school system had received more than 16,000 e-mails and 1,000 phone calls by yesterday afternoon — almost all of them criticizing the board's decision.
Madison is Wisconsin's second-largest school system, with 25,000 students.
The state budget contains a provision requiring all public schools to give students the opportunity to sing the national anthem or recite the Pledge of Allegiance each day. The law said students could not be compelled to participate.
Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater had allowed each school to choose between the
pledge and the anthem. But some teachers and parents complained that children who did not believe in the pledge would feel pressured to recite it.
The board voted 3-2 Monday to allow only the playing of the national anthem to comply with the law — and only without the words, which some parents complained were too militaristic.
The next day, President Calvin Williams said the board would reconsider its decision at a meeting next week. Quick also said the district will participate in a nationwide event today in which all public and private schools have been asked to simultaneously recite the pledge.
The Associated Press
NBC outbids Viacom Inc. in buy-out of Telemundo
NEW YORK — NBC said yesterday it is buying Telemundo Communications Group Inc., the No. 2 Spanish-language broadcaster in the United States, for about $2 billion in cash and stock.
Hispanic media has been expanding even as other media businesses have slumped because of the poor advertising climate, which was worsened by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The deal would give NBC a strong foothold in the burgeoning arena of Hispanic media, which has attracted the attention of major media conglomerates because of the rapidly growing Latino population.
NBC is paying $1.98 billion for the Hialeah, Fla.-based Telemundo in a mix of half cash and
half stock in NBC's corporate parent, General Electric Co. NBC would also assume about $700 million in debt.
Sony Corp. owns about 40 percent of the closely held Telemundo, while Liberty Media, a company controlled by cable pioneer John Malone, has a 35 percent stake. The rest is held by other investors.
In an interview with CNBC, the business news channel owned by NBC. Wright acknowledged that before accounting for cost savings, the terms of deal would be "very expensive."
But he added that the companies expected numerous benefits as they combined ad sales teams, swapped programs from NBC to use on Telemundo, and made other cost savings. He said he expected Telemundo to contribute up to $600 million in revenues to NBC within two years
GE has denied frequent rumors that it wants to sell the network, and it has charged NBC's management to expand the company.
NBC is the only major network not owned by a larger media empire; ABC is owned by Walt Disney Co., Viacom Inc. owns CBS and UPN; Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. owns Fox; and AOL Time Warner Inc. owns WB.
Telemundo's reach is behind that of leading Hispanic broadcaster Univision Communications Inc., which is based in Los Angeles. But Univision has been responding to the competitive threat from Telemundo and other rivals with teams to start a second Spanish-language network, Telefutura, next year.
Healthy goal may go up in smoke
The Associated Press
ATLANTA—The number of American adults who smoke has hardly budged in the past several years, keeping steady at roughly one in four.
The figures are frustrating to health officials, who want to see the smoking level much lower by the end of the decade.
A 1999 study released yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 23.5 percent of adults — about 46 million people — are regular smokers. That is a modest decline from 24 percent in 1998 and 25 percent in 1993.
the numbers are lagging far behind that goal, set last year.
"We're happy that we're back on a downward trend, but those feelings are tempered with our recognition that we will not reach the objective without a more dramatic decline," said Terry Pechacek, physician and associate director of CDC's Office on Smoking and Health.
The government is aiming for 12 percent by 2010 and admits
Smoking dropped steadily during the 1980s. But it flattened out in the 1990s, even amid heavy anti-tobacco advertising, higher cigarette prices and a crackdown on smoking in public places.
The CDC wants more states to imitate Arizona, which saw a big drop in smoking after voters
approved a steep hike in the cigarette tax and the state launched a creative anti-smoking campaign. The popular ads blasted cigarettes as a "smelly, puking habit," and smoking dropped from 23 percent to 18 percent in three years.
Directing more prevention programs at teen-agers might help cut the smoking rate among adults, said Norman Edelman, scientific consultant to the American Lung Association.
"We have this $250 billion of tobacco settlement money out there, and just a handful of states are putting a significant amount into education programs," he said.
U.N. official addresses U.S.cities via satellite
The Associated Press
Muhammad Ali-Salaam, 55, a deputy director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, was among 80 people who gathered in the Statehouse in Boston for the broadcast. Ali-Salaam, whose 24-year-old son is serving on a Navy aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf area, asked Annan what the U.N. had done to fight terrorism before the attacks.
BOSTON — U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told audiences in 10 American cities yesterday that a common sense of vulnerability would keep the international community united, even on the fractious issue of fighting terrorism.
"We've been fighting terrorism for a long time," Annan said, describing the organization's work in drafting a dozen conventions on terrorism.
Annan, speaking in a town hall forum via satellite from New York, said the United Nations provided the best venue for bringing nations together after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
He also said the definition of terrorism could divide countries as the U.N. General Assembly began discussing a new convention on the thorny issue. He reminded audience members that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
"The sense was this could happen anywhere," Annan said, describing the feeling among diplomats at U.N. headquarters after the Sept. 11 attacks. "It's New York today; where is it going to happen next time?"
He fielded questions for about 30 minutes from the invitation-only audiences, which included civic leaders, clergy, community leaders and students. Retired CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite moderated the forum.
In Tampa, Fla., G. Jeffrey Klepfer, dean of liberal arts and sciences at the University of Tampa, asked Annan about a recent Associated Press poll that found nine in 10 Americans said they thought the U.N. should play a major role in pulling countries together to fight terrorism.
Annan said he was "delighted" by the results of the poll, which he said showed Americans realized the importance of countries working together to solve the problem.
"That is the only way we defeat terrorism." Annan said.
The "town hall" event was organized by The Better World Campaign, created from part of a $1 billion gift from satellite television pioneer Ted Turner. The other cities addressed were Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Seattle and St. Louis.
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