monday,november 10.2002
news
the university daily kansan 5A
States cut costs, primaries
The Associated Press
Several states have moved to drop their presidential primaries next year, worried about costs in still-tight financial times and wondering if the political exercise would serve any purpose.
Some say they can't afford the millions of dollars it costs to put on an election. Others say the decisions reflect the lopsided nature of modern primaries: The front-runner gets anointed by the media and campaign donors after the first few state primaries and the rest of the primaries are formalities.
The decisions add fuel to the argument that the primary system is in dire need of repairs. In most states forgoing a primary, party-run caucuses will be used instead to choose delegates to the national conventions.
"Fewer voters will participate because (caucuses) are more complex," said Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. State politicians are freezing out average voters, he said, because caucuses bring "lower turnout, and more advantage to whoever's organized."
Primaries usually don't get turnout much higher than 20 percent of registered voters, but they're better than caucuses. In Missouri, the 2000 primary brought 745,000 people to the polls, while the 1996 caucus brought 20,000, the state Democratic Party said.
So far, Kansas, Colorado and Utah — all with Republican-controlled legislatures — have canceled their state-run 2004 primaries. Republican legislatures tried unsuccessfully to drop primaries in Arizona and Missouri, but Democratic governors either vetoed the primary bill or restored the funding.
Some Democrats complain that cutting primaries hurt them
especially, with their crowded field of candidates. President Bush has no challenger.
Other Democrats, however, are pushing to get rid of primaries. Maine dropped its presidential primary for next year, and New Mexico effectively did — it passed a law allowing parties to hold caucuses, and then Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson set an early Feb. 3 caucus (June primaries will go on for other elections).
Washington Gov. Gary Locke, head of the Democratic Governors Association, is calling a special session to discuss scrapping his state's primary next year.
"Why waste $7 million of scarce state money?" Locke said. Democrats in Washington state are using precinct caucuses in February to allocate national convention delegates, making the March 2 primary pointless.
Colored People's journal, Crisis.
Wilkens said that he admired Washington for his goals of holding the country together and building a foundation for a presidency.
Wilkins concluded his speech by looking at the struggle of racial equality throughout U.S. history
"If I met George Washington today, I would be tongue-tied, and not simply because he is dead." Wilkins said.
He said that the tools to eradicate this splotch were put into place with the first president
race is a profound American problem," Wilkins said. "It's like an ugly splotch on the American flag, but over time, that splotch isn't as dark as it used to be."
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
REPORTER: Wilkins speaks to full house at Lied
After the lecture, Wilkins signed copies of his books, which include A Man's Life, Quiet Riots and the most recent.
Jefferson's Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism.
Luke Thompson first heard Wilkins speak at the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics dedication in July. The Lawrence freshman said he had helped with the dedication and that Wilkins was a personal hero for him.
"I admire him for his work and his outspoken address of American racial standards," Thompson said.
Last night Thompson got to eat dinner with Wilkins before the speech.
"I am impressed by his intellectual honesty and his ability to see presidents as humans and not as marble gods," Thompson said.
Wilkins was the second speaker in this year's Presidential Lecture Series. The series started last November with three speakers, said Erik Nelson, deputy director of the Dole Institute. The lecture series, sponsored by the Dole Institute, will bring presidential speakers to Lawrence every Sunday in November. Nelson said the series has had a full audience.
"There is a lack of this caliber of speaker in Lawrence," Nelson said.
The next speaker in the in the lecture series will be David Gergen this Sunday. Gergen was Presidential adviser for Richard Nixon, Geral Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
"He is the ultimate insider," Nelson said.
The series will end with Richard Norton Smith, who will give his Ten Rules to Judge a President, a presidential ranking. The event will not only be the end of the lecture series, but an ending to his position as the Dole Institute director.
— Edited by Doyle Murphy
State
Sebelius shows more marketing than policy
TOPEKA —In the year since her election, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has often seemed to be a whirlwind of activity.
She has had government review teams generating long lists of ideas for making government more efficient and a policy group traveling the state to solicit opinions on
Sebelius
Yet some critics of the Democrat governor wonder how much she has accomplished.
education. A task force on rural life meets regularly, and she has sponsored regional and statewide summits on energy and economic development.
She argues she first had to stabilize the state's finances, then start public discussions about the future, before the 2004 Legislature convenes.
She and legislators patched together a status quo budget, relying largely on tricks like rescheduled an aid payment to public schools and requiring Kansans to pay some of their property taxes a month earlier.
Arguably her greatest policy coup was helping to balance the state's $10.2 billion budget without a general tax increase and without further cuts in education, something plenty of legislators, political activists and reporters said couldn't be done.
The Associated Press
Nation
Six-year-old suspected for shooting grandfather
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A 6-year-old boy suspected of shooting his grandfather to death with a.22-caliber rifle has a history of mental illness and attacking
family members, authorities said.
James Zbinden, 59, was found dead at his home Friday after his grandson ran into the street and flagged down a neighbor, Cole County Sheriff John Hemeyer said.
The boy, who has not been identified, is being evaluated at a mental-health facility.
"We believe, at this time, that he killed his grandfather intentionally." Hemeyer said. An autopsy Saturday showed Zbindenbled to death from a single gunshot wound near his armpit.
Hemeyer said Zbinden and the boy were alone together Friday when the boy apparently found a gun that family members thought was no longer in the house.
Past assaults have involved the boy's younger siblings and his parents, Hemeyer said. He also said the boy has used knives during previous attacks.
Juvenile "punishment does not exist in Missouri," Hemeyer said.
The Associated Press
Veterans for parades hard to find during war
MIAMI — Even as thousands of U.S. troops are stationed in war zones abroad, plans for Veterans Day parades across the country are being scaled back or scrapped.
The problem: Not enough troops, tanks and HumVees to wow the patriotic crowds.
"With the large number of active and reserve units called up, a lot of them that would normally be available are on duty," said Bill Smith, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Washington.
The military has 131,600 troops deployed in Iraq, in addition to troops serving in Afghanistan. War equipment usually available from state armories and military bases has been shipped out with troops.
"We have two-thirds of our post deployed," she said. "We just can't meet all of these requests when we don't have the soldiers to do it."
woman for the Army at Fort Riley, Kan., said the base turned down invitations from about a dozen towns for its troops to participate in Veterans Day parades.
Deb Skidmore, a spokes-
Kerry, Lieberman blast Bush for veterans' plans
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry and Joe Lieberman launched Veterans Day attacks on President Bush for his treatment of former service members
and outlined their own plans for improving benefits.
A copy of the initiative Kerry was unveiling at his Monday stops was provided to the Associated Press late yesterday.
A decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, the Massachusetts senator claims the Bush administration has come up sadly lacking in treatment for veterans.
Kerry put no price tag on his package, but said 90,000 veterans are awaiting care from VA hospitals and that fees and co-payments veterans must pay are increasing.
He called for mandatory funding of veterans health care programs to assure all eligible veterans health care at VA hospitals and warned that under existing plans, up to 500,000 veterans
Kerry
would be excluded from the govern ment health care system by 2005.
Lieberman,
who is a senior
member of the
Senate Armed
Services Committee, outlined a 12-part proposal.
He offered "a decent wage" along with special compensation for housing, health care and other services so veterans can provide for their families, and he promised not to cut military pay if he were president.
The Associated Press
Ambassador credits rock music revolution
Lieberman
CLEVELAND—Rock music played lead in giving Hungarian baby boomers the resolve to bring down their communist state, says one of those reformers who today is a government official.
Andras Simonyi, Hungary's ambassador to the United States, spent an hour Saturday night discussing the impact of Western songs on Eastern European politics before an invitation-only audience of 250 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Simonyi, 51, was a devoted fan of the Beatles, Cream, Traffic and Jimi Hendrix when their releases weren't officially permitted in Hungary. Records and tapes sometimes were smuggled in or recorded from foreign radio broadcasts.
Hungary became a democracy in 1990 — after more than 40 years of communism. The nation of 10 million joined NATO in 1999 and will formally join the European Union on May 1,2004.
"By keeping in touch with the music scene in the West, it kind of kept me sane and with the feeling I was part of the free world," said Simonyi, an economist by training.
The Associated Press
California lecturer freed on bail in Iran
TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian authorities freed yesterday an American university lecturer jailed since July on suspicion of espionage, a prosecutor's office spokesman said.
Dariush Zahedi, an Iranian-
born American citizen who lectures at University of California-Berkley, was freed after his relatives posted bail of $250,000, Mohammad Shadabi told The Associated Press late yesterday. He gave no further details.
A close friend of Zahedi said the lecturer was free to leave Iran but was required to return to stand possible trial. He said Zahedi appeared healthy after being released.
Zahedi was taken to Evin prison, north of Tehran, on July 10 on suspicion of espionage activities while visiting relatives in Iran.
Mohsen Mirdamadi, who heads the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, expressed concern that Zahedi could meet the same fate as an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist, Zahra Kazemi, who was killed in Iranian custody.
Kazemi, 54, died July 10 from fatal head injuries suffered during 77 hours of interrogation in the same prison as Zahedi.
The Associated Press
Work
Guatemala election laden with problems
GUATEMALACITY Guatemalans waited in long lines yesterday to vote in the second presidential election since peace accords were signed seven years ago, a tense poll that will decide the future of a former dictator accused of human rights abuses.
Fears of violence were fueled when a top aide of center-left presidential candidate Alvaro Colom was shot in the leg and hand outside his home the night before voting.
There were reports of problems during yesterday's balloting, including two women trampled to death as a crowd fought to enter a polling station in the northern city Chajul. Several others were injured
Pre-election polls showed Colom,52,and former Guatemala City Mayor Oscar Berger,57,in a statistical tie before Sunday's race,with each candidate capturing about 33 percent.
Retired Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, who led a successful coup in 1982, was trailing a distant third.
The election is the second since 1996 peace accords ended 36 years of civil war.
The Associated Pr
Officials: Al-Qaeda tried to oust Saudi royal family
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudis blamed al-Qaida militants yesterday for the suicide car bombing of a Riyadh housing complex that killed 17 people, declaring it proof of the terror network's willingness to shed Muslim blood in its zeal to bring down the U.S.-linked Saudi monarchy.
The Saturday night attack at an upscale compound for foreign workers also wounded 122 people. The blast, not far from diplomatic quarters and the king's main palace, left piles of rubble, hunks of twisted metal, broken glass and a large crater.
An Interior Ministry official told the official Saudi news agency late last night that the death toll rose to 17—including five children —after search crews pulled six more bodies from the rubble. At least 13 were Arabs, with the others as yet unidentified, the official said.
President Bush telephoned his condolences to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah. Bush told Abdullah the United States stands with the kingdom in the fight against terror, a White House official said.
U. S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said he was "personally quite sure" al-Qaida was behind the Saturday night attack "because this attack bears the hallmark of them."
The Associated Press
Study Abroad Fair
Wednesday, November 12, 9:30 a.m.-3:30p.m. Kansas Union, 4th Floor
Office of Study Abroad 108 Lippincott Hall osa@ku.edu www.ku.edu/~osa 785-864-3742
We Buy, Sell,
Trade & Consign
USED & New
Sports Equipment