Weight for me
The results aren't always the same, but the psychological reasons people have for working out with weights are similar, says a KU sports psychologist
Story, page 7
It was Met to be
The New York Mets became the World Series champions last night, defeating the Boston Red Sox 8-5 to win the best of seven series, four games to three.
Story, page 7
Sunny side up
Today's weather will be a repeat of yesterday's, with mostly sunny skies and highs in the 70s. Tonight will be mostly clear but cool.
Details, page 3
Vol. 97, No. 47 (USPS 650-640)
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
Tuesday
October 28, 1986
Contras may get training on U.S. soil, officials say
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The administration, faced with refusals by four Central American countries to train Nicaraguan rebels, is planning to teach military tactics to the contras in the United States, officials said yesterday.
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger said he knew nothing about the plan, but the officials said planning for U.S. training of the contras — as the rebels are known popularly — had been under way since early summer.
The officials said that no specific U.S. military installations had been chosen as training sites and that training was based on experience.
"A lot of planning has been done and, obviously, training is part of it," said an administration official. "People don't sit on their hands."
Training in the United States is an option and very likely, another official said
The officials, who spoke only on condition they not be identified, declined to go into details about where the contracts may be trained, but said it was logical to assume that all of the $100 million aid package for the contras.
Of the $100 million in assistance, $27 million was ear marked for non-lethal aid.
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama have said publicly they will not agree to train the contrast, because some fear Nicaragua would retaliate militarily. All but Panama border on Nicaragua.
But the administration has not closed the door on the possibility of contra training in Central America, and
Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams was in Central America discussing the matter. He emphasized that no decision had been made on a U.S. training site.
"There's no information to back that story up at all." Weinberger said about a Washington Post report Monday that tentative plans called for training contras in the United States. "The twist on it that everybody was told to rush around and find out suitable places (for training) and all. I don't have any knowledge of that. I don't have any information to support that."
"The contra aid program is circumscribed very tightly by the Congress, and we'll stay entirely within those constraints. The Defense Department has nothing to do with that. That is outside our purview. The CIA is going to do the program."
Weinberger has endorsed U.S. training of contras, said his spokesman, Robert Sims. The estimated 20,000 contra forces are based in Honduras and Costa Rica, both of which border Nicaragua.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes said the administration was reviewing the $100 million contra aid program. President Reagan signed the order Friday for the aid to begin going to the contras, who seek to overthrow the Sandinista government.
Corrections program sought
By CRAIG HERRMANN
Some county and state officials want to try to rehabilitate nonviolent criminals in communities rather than prisons.
As an alternative to unsafe and overcrowded prisons, some Douglas County officials are examining a $292,500 program that would create some first-time, nonviolent offenders within the county.
The Douglas County Community Corrections Board brought the plan for the program before county commissioners last week. The state-financed program would seek to rehabilitate the offender in two ways: through intensive supervision, where the offender is closely monitored by a corrections officer or through an education-employment program, where the offender would receive job skills training.
Jim Flory, Douglas County district attorney, said yesterday that the two basic options available when sentencing were sending the offender to the state prison system or putting the offender on probation.
He said he thought a number of offenders fell between the two options and might not be helped by prison or probation. These are the offenders who would be targeted for the community corrections program.
"Sending these first-time, nonviolent offenders to prison might not benefit them or the community." Flory said. "And the probation system may not provide enough guidance for them."
David Hopper, county commissioner, said he thought the community corrections program would benefit Douglas County.
"This would be a good way to help certain non-violent offenders within our own communities," Hopper said.
Mark Matese, community corrections program consultant for the Kansas Department of Corrections, said he thought the program would keep some offenders out of prison and leave them in the community, where they could work, pay taxes and support their family.
"With the jails overcrowded as they are, these offenders probably don't get a jail."
"Since offenders generally return to the community after they serve a prison term, it makes sense to keep them in custody and can be productive citizens," he said.
Matese said 11 other Kansas counties were using the community corrections program, including Shawney, Johnson and Sedgwick. He said that each county formulated its own program to meet individual county needs.
See REHABILITATE, p. 5, col. 1
Water rats
Lori Smith/Special to the KANSAN
Tommy Fawcett, 7, left, and his brother John Paul, 9, gather rocks for a dam they are building in a brook. The boys, sons of Stephen Fawcett, Lawrence, and Cindy Parry, Lawrence, were playing Sunday in Brook Creek Park, 12th and Brook streets.
John Simmons, Treasurer for the Committee to Elect a True Amphibian, holds a Northern Crawfish Frog similar to Agnes the Frog, a write-in candidate for the Douglas County Commission.
Agnes the Frog runs as jump-in candidate
By KAREN SAMELSON
Staff writer
Agnes the Frog is willing to leave her homeland to help save other members of her species from what she sees as a murky future.
In an attempt to save future generations of frogs, Agrees announced yesterday that she would run as a write-in candidate for county commissioner, challenging Nancy Hiebert, commission chairwoman, who has no human opponents in the Nov. 4 election.
John Simmons, collections manager at the KU Museum of Natural History and Agnes' collection, who was preparing for bibernation
Agnes could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Simmons said Agnes, who had at least 4.044 children, would be willing to shorten her hibernation period and move to an aquarium in District of Douglas County to meet residence requirements if she won.
Anges and her friends, who live in the Baker Wetlands south of 31st Street and east of Kmart 3106 and the list of threatened species, he said.
Agnes is seeking office because the proposed route of the bypass on the southern edge of Lawrence would endanger the survival of her species, the Northern crawfish fish. Simmons said.
Agnes has had no previous political experience, he said, and she is not affiliated with any
County Clerk Patty Jaimes said write-in candidates would be considered only if the number of write-in votes exceeded those of the vote on the ballot.
She began her advertising campaign yesterday in the Kansan and the Lawrence Daily Journal-World.
Election officials don't count fictitious characters, she said.
But, Simmons said, "I think she'll make a splash in the election."
political parties except her own, the Committee to Elect a True Amphibian.
Hiebert said that before she considered debating Agnes, she wanted to know whether the frog registered to vote in Douglas County.
Frank Hempen, Douglas County director of public works, said that the original bypass plan would have gone through the Baker Wetlands but that officials had tried to help the frogs by moving the route north, closer to 31st Street.
Hiebert warned that voters should consider the effects on humans if the bypass didn't go through, pointing out that engines and given that they are built on streets "F" rating because of congestion.
*Being Selected or Congested*
Although Agnes' chances are slim, Simmons said. "Even if one person votes for Agnes the Frog, the point will have been made that Agnes stands for a choice."
Local agencies deal with issue of suicide
Staff writer
By RIC ANDERSON
Lawrence police reported that a 21-year-old KU student attempted suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping tablets at 6:30 p.m. Sunday in her home in the 3100 block of 22nd Street.
She was taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital by ambulance. A hospital spokesman yesterday would inform about the student's condition
The student, who took 28 Sominex II tablets, survived the attempt partly because a neighbor called the police and partly because the dose she took was not lethal.
While suicide victims often think that they have no one to turn to, a variety of agencies in Lawrence deal with suicide prevention and education as a part of their jobs.
She said the service received about 30 calls a month from people who were visiting the place.
Marcia Epstein, director of Headquarters, Inc., 1419 Massachusetts Street, a suicide prevention service in Lawrence, said services such as hers were for people who needed help, but could not talk openly to friends or family.
"If we get a call like that, that per
See SUICIDE, p. 5, col. 1
Taxes may help fight state drug production
Bv PATRICIA FEENY
Staff writer
Property taxes could be an important weapon in the war on drugs in the state, the publisher of the Kansas Tax Journal said.
"The drug economy in America has been identified as a $500 billion
Joe Fleming, publisher and commercial affairs editor of the Kansas Tax Journal, said yesterday from Wichita that if sheriffs and county appraisers worked together to collect property taxes against illegal drug laboratories, drug manufacturers could be forced out of Kansas and significant revenue could be generated.
industry," Fleming said "if Kansas has one percent of the nation's population, it probably has about one percent of the narcotics industry.
"This means that about $150 million in property taxes are being paid."
If strong penalties were imposed in this state, drug manufacturers would be forced to go elsewhere, Fleming said.
Fleming and Ray Menendez, government affairs editor of the Kansas Tax Journal, have been studying the drug and tax-property relationship for about a year. They are not af-
See DRUGS, p. 5, col. 5