8A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11,2002
Homecoming CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
Boatright worked with Rosen and the calendar committee to draft a recommendation to move fall break a week later. from Oct. 16-19 to Oct. 23-26.
Changing the academic calendar ultimately requires the approval of the Board of Regents. Before that, the change must be approved by University Council and the administration.
In its Dec. 5 meeting, University Council voted against moving fall break to accommodate the Oct.18,2003, football game and homecoming.
Adam Obley, a student member of University Council, said that moving fall break would upset already scheduled test dates and advising periods.
"I can't just subordinate the
academic mission of the University to homecoming," said Obley, Topeka senior and student senator.
While November is not an ideal time for homecoming, weather should not be a consideration, Obley said.
"There's no point to trying to predict the weather in the state of Kansas," he said.
University Council's decision brings the calendar committee and the group in charge of scheduling homecoming back to square one, at least for now.
There is a possibility that University Council will reconsider its decision at its next meeting Jan.30, Boatright said.
But if University Council doesn't change its decision, moving fall break becomes a dead issue.
"There's a need to move ahead
and make the other decision, set the calendar and live with it," he said.
Kit Brauer, a University Council member and student senator, said the University was being too narrow-minded in its idea of homecoming.
This fall, the women's soccer team had four home games during October.
"KU could be the progressive leader in that department," Brauer said.
"I think women's soccer could draw the same amount of people to a game that football could."
There's no reason that homecoming must involve a football game, said Brauer, Denver junior. He suggested women's soccer.
Edited by Matt Norton
Advertisement
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
like some students have_posted the ads as part of a prank."
Doug Riat, director of Facilities Operations, said his department had been asked by the Provost to remove ads based on inappropriate content. But usually, Facilities Operations only
removes the postings in areas where they are not permissible, like on light poles, doors, or painted surfaces that could be damaged.
The University should not enforce restrictions on the content of the ads posted on bulletin boards, said Julie Schwind, Olathe senior. Because the bulletin boards are information centers for students, students should
"The University can't be aware of every ad out there unless they run through the classrooms all the time," she said. "So much of what students hear depends on bulletin boards and word of mouth."
be able to decide what goes on them.
- Edited by Matt Norton
Protests continue in Venezuela
The Associated Press
CARACAS, Venezuela — Supporters of Hugo Chavez surged into the streets yesterday for a second straight night of raucous protests — trying to drown out opposition demands that the leftist president give up power.
Hundreds of "Chavistas," as the president's followers are known, ringed the headquarters of the private Globovision television network and rallied at the headquarters of the state oil monopoly.
The new protests came amid the tumult of a nine-day-old national opposition strike that has created shortages of food and drinking water and disrupted the country's oil industry. Earlier yesterday, thousands of opposition demonstrators marched in the capital, Caracas, to protest Chavista demonstrations at
media outlets and an assault by Chavez supporters on a regional branch of Globovision.
Tensions were further raised when nearly half the judges on the Supreme Court decided yesterday to suspend work to protest what they said was political harassment by the Chavez government.
Labor, business and opposition political groups called the strike on Dec. 2 to demand an early referendum on Chavez's presidency, which is scheduled to end in 2007. They upped their demand to Chavez's ouster after three people were killed and 28 wounded at an opposition rally on Friday.
The strike has paralyzed the oil industry, which provides 70 percent of Venezuela's export revenue and is a key supplier to the United States. The government has dispatched troops to take over gasoline deliveries and
guard against unrest in Caracas.
In Washington, the State Department praised Venezuela's security forces for protecting media outlets from demonstrators and urged both sides to work with the Organization of American States as it seeks a negotiated settlement to the conflict.
On Sunday, Chavez accused most of Venezuela's news media of waging a "terrorist and bloody" war against his leftist government. He accused the opposition of pursuing the same tactics that led to his brief ouster in April — at that time, a general strike, protests and a military coup — all backed by the local media.
A populist former army paratrooper elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2000, Chavez refuses to call elections that could cut his term, though he's offered to take on challengers in a binding referendum next year.
Texanguilty of child abuse
The Associated Press
DALLAS — A man was convicted yesterday of locking his 8-year-old stepdaughter in a filthy closet for months at a time without adequate food, water, clothes or a toilet.
Jurors deliberated little more than an hour before finding Kenneth Atkinson guilty of causing serious bodily injury to a child.
The same jury will begin hearing testimony Wednesday in the penalty phase. Atkinson faces five years to life in prison.
in prison in January.
A jury sentenced the girl's mother, Barbara Atkinson, to life
The child was rescued after Atkinson told a neighbor nearly 18 months ago his stepdaughter was locked in a closet in the mobile home he shared with his wife.
Defense attorney Malcolm Dade had argued the girl's abuse was orchestrated by Atkinson's wife. He said Atkinson was dominated and intimidated by his wife but eventually saved the girl's life by confessing her whereabouts.
Prosecutors argued Atkinson should have acted earlier to stop the abuse, which they said had gone on for five or six years. They also said he participated in the
abuse by installing locks on the outside of a closet door.
"He knew she needed food and nutrition and medical attention. He knew she needed love and attention. But what does he do? He locks her in a closet," lead prosecutor Patricia Hogue said. "He had every opportunity along the way to do something about this. But rather than do something, he participated in it."
The 8-year-old girl weighed 25 pounds and stood 3 feet tall when she was rescued from the closet in June 2001. She has since been adopted by a couple who had tried to adopt her at birth.
Church files incriminating
The Associated Press
Church scandals have drawn national attention over the years a pedophile priest in Louisiana, one in New England another in Dallas.
But none of those cases, or hundreds of others in the past two decades, threatened to destroy the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church in America like the clerical sex abuse crisis did this year.
What set 2002 apart was this:
The most damaging revelations came not from alleged victims but from the church's own files.
Over the objections of the Boston Archdiocese, The Boston Globe persuaded a judge in January to unseal church documents regarding claims of molestation against priests. The files provided the most extensive evidence to date that preventing scandal in the church consistently took precedence over protecting children.
Those records alone — with letters from bishops expressing support for accused priests, not victims — would have been enough to keep the scandal alive for months.
But as the year wore on, more damaging church documents were made public in Boston and dioceses from coast-to-coast. Each release undermined bishops' pledges that they had revealed all about their past mistakes, and gave hundreds of alleged victims the confidence to come forward.
The toll on the church — morally, financially, legally — is still hard for Catholics to grasp, though at least 325 of the nation's 46,000 priests have resigned or been removed from their posts this year from Maine to California. Bishops in Milwaukee, New York, Lexington, Ky., and Palm Beach, Fla., stepped down after being enmeshed in sex scandals.
Another round of disturbing revelations came in December, again in Boston. Plaintiffs' lawyers released documents that showed the archdiocese sheltering several rogue priests, including one clergyman who had failed years ago to immediately call police when the mother of his children overdosed on drugs. Demands intensified for Boston Cardinal Bernard Law to resign.
Soon, Catholics around the country demanded to know if their bishops had also failed to punish offenders.
"There are cases that endured into the '90s that weren't corrected in Boston and elsewhere," said Scott Appleby, a University of Notre Dame history professor who spoke at the national bishops' meeting in June. "The bishops have systematically mishandled the situation."
Bishops at first felt the outrage was misplaced. In the early 1990s, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops developed a set of guidelines meant to improve dioceses' response to abuse claims and put victims first.
The prelates noted that most of the cases revealed this year
involved claims from before the policy had been adopted. They blamed the media and church critics for ignoring the reforms.
But the bishops' protests rang hollow as parishioners learned about the depth of the malfeasance in some dioceses.
Bishops acknowledged that many abuse claims had never been forwarded to civil authorities and prosecutors convened grand juries to learn why.
Church leaders also revealed they had paid millions of dollars to quietly settle abuse cases, but few would discuss the source of the funding. Some parishioners responded by withholding donations.
Church leaders took dramatic steps to regain their credibility.
They met with the pope approved a new policy that bars all abusers from church work, formed a lay National Review Board to ensure every diocese complies with the new standards and hired a former FBI investigator to lead their new child protection office.
But even as they took these actions, the crisis would not die. The Archdiocese of Boston is now considering bankruptcy as it faces millions of dollars in claims from sex abuse victims. About 200 abuse lawsuits are pending against the Archdiocese of Louisville, Ky., alone.
And California dioceses are bracing for a flood of lawsuits next year because the state loosened its statute of limitations for abuse claims effective Jan. 1.
IMPERIAL GARDEN
2907 W. 6th St. BEST BUFFET IN LAWRENCE!
Tel: 841-1688 • 841-3370
FULL BAR WITH MIXED DRINKS
$1.00 OFF
Dinner Buffet
for 2 or more people
DINE IN ONLY
10% OFF
For take-out and delivery
Lunch $4.95 Sunday $5.95 Dinner $6.95
Authentic Chinese Cuisine
Ask about discounts for parties of 5 or more!
944 Mass.
832-8228
Red Lyon Tavern
take an ornament off the tree displays on the back will be an age and sex of a child as a donor, purchase a toy and bring it back to the SUA office Level 4 Kansas Union.
Wednesdays 12:30-1:00pm "Bring your lunch because the drinks are one us"
Alderson Auditorium
Kansas Union
BrownBag CLASSICS
Don't miss the last Brown Bag Classic!
Dec. 11th Professor Kip Haaheim (Electronic Music Studio)
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