Tuesday, December 1, 1998
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 5
Kansas sees drunk driving numbers drop
By Chris Fickett
Kansan staff writer
Next to Kansas Highway 10 it is not hard to find empty beer cans and bottles. Injuries and deaths from drunk driving have gone down, but recently there have been some incidents in the Kansas area caused by drunk driving. Photo by Tara Bradley/KANSAN
Sobriety checkpoints, tougher laws and education programs have helped decrease the number of alcohol-related traffic accidents in Kansas during the past seven years, according to the Kansas Department of Transportation.
According to a Kansas Department of Transportation report released two weeks ago, there were 3,205 alcohol-related accidents in 1997 in Kansas,434 fewer than in 1990.
Fewer of Kansas' traffic fatalities were alcohol-related in 1997 than the rest of the United States. 17.9 percent of motor vehicle fatalities in the state were alcohol related, compared to the national average of 38.6 percent.
E. Dean Carlson, KDOT secretary, said that stricter drunken driving laws and comprehensive statewide programs designed to discourage drinking and driving initiated during the 1990s contributed to the decrease.
"Drunken driving is an important highway safety issue and Kansas has made significant strides during the last decade in reducing the number of deaths and injuries resulting from crashes involving alcohol." Carlson said.
Carlson said the reduction of alcohol-related crashes and deaths also could be contributed to preventive measures such as sobriety checkpoints.
"KDOT will continue to work at further reducing drunken driving in an effort to provide safe highways for the traveling public," Carlson said.
Patrice Pomeroy, assistant director of the state bureau of traffic safety, said the way KDOT counted alcohol-related crashes changed in 1997.
Pomeroy said KDOT compiled its crash data from state accident reports that police fill out whenever a traffic accident occurs. Alcohol is included in a report if it was found in a vehicle, in the passengers' possession or if any of the occupants
of a vehicle were found to be intoxicated.
In previous years, police could list alcohol as being involved in a traffic accident in six places on the state traffic incident form.
Pomeroy said that the new form provided only two places to list alcohol.
Pomeray said that the new form was designed to streamline the process of counting the number of alcohol-related crashes.
Crash numbers from previous years have been adjusted to reflect the change, Pomeroy said.
Filmmaker visits University, discusses difficulties of work
By Mariana Paiva
Kansan staff writer
During her first University of Kansas visit, the independent Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando will teach a lesson of solidarity.
Since 1976 Rolando has worked at the Cuban National Film Institute as a researcher, assistant director, script writer and director. Now she works as the head of the independent filmmaking group, Imagines del Caribe, based in Havana.
Yesterday, she talked to Latin American studies and theater and film classes. Rolando showed one of her films last night and will show two more today. The three pieces are the result of more than 20 years of hard work that focus on the diverse origins and components of contemporary Cuban society.
"I didn't have big dreams when I started. I was just interested in history, human beings and spirituality." Rolando said.
She said Cuban filmmakers had to buy old tapes from television stations. The opportunity to visit the United States as a speaker also helped her to acquire more film material.
Rolando said independent filmmakers in Cuba worked with limited resources and only with each other's help could they get the material to produce a film.
"You need a lot of energy to survive," she said. "In order to get help here, people need to know my work, and now I have three documentaries to show them."
Today, she will show Eyes of the Rain.
bow, a film on Assata Shakur, the Black Panther and Black Liberation Army leader who took refuge in Cuba. Eyes of the Rainbow will be shown at 5 p.m. in 330 Strong.
The other film scheduled for today is Oggin: The Eternal Present, which shows aspects of Cuban culture and its religion, Santeria.
Omofolabo Ajayl-Soyinka, associate professor of women's studies and theater and film, invited Rolando to speak at the University.
She said Rolando's works could be relevant to the University's goal of promoting diversity.
"Cuba is a very diverse culture, and her works try to integrate all these different cultures," Ajayi-Soyinka said. "I'm not saying that they are equal, but the kind of division you see in the United States, you don't have there."
Ajaiy-Soyinka said she tried to bring Rolando to campus two years ago.
"She was in hard demand, and I couldn't book her," she said. "We are really lucky to have her coming this time."
Although Rolando has been invited to speak at different universities in the nation, the fact that she is Cuban delayed her arrival to the United States. This time, Rolando faced problems with her visa, and her visit scheduled for earlier in November had to be pushed back to this week.
Endeavour launch to carry America's first piece of space station
Now, she is working on a film of the 1912 Cuban Army genocide of the Independents of Color, the first black political party in the hemisphere.
The Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA began the countdown yesterday for a shuttle launch that will put the first American piece of the international space station into orbit.
Endeavour is scheduled to blast off Thursday on the long-delayed mission. During the flight, two spacewalking astronauts will fasten together the U.S. piece and a component that was launched by the Russians nearly two weeks ago.
"Hey, this has been a long time coming," shuttle commander
Robert Cabana said. "It's time that we launch and get the first U.S.built piece of hardware up there to the international space station and start a new era in international cooperation in space exploration."
"It's time to fly," added Sergei Krikalev, a Russian cosmonaut assigned to the one-year-late mission.
It is expected to take a total of 45 U.S. and Russian launches during the next five years to haul up pieces of the space station and put them together in orbit. When completed, the station will stretch as long as a football field.
Liftoff is set for just before 4 a.m., although rain and low clouds could interfere. The odds of acceptable weather were put at 40 percent.
Yesterday, NASA loaded last minute Russian equipment into the shuttle, including electrical gear to fix a faulty battery aboard the first station component, Zarya.
The six shuttle astronauts will rendezvous with Zarya, Russian for sunrise, two days into their 12-day flight.
They will use the shuttle robot arm to grab the 44,000-pound cylinder and attach it to the station component carried up aboard Endeavour,
a 25,000-pound passageway named
Unity. Then two spacewalkers will
go outside to fasten all the electrical
connections and cables between the
two components and attach hand
rails and tools for future crews.
Cabana said the pressure to succeed was intense, especially after so many delays.
"Hey, it's a hard task," he said. "You want to get up there, and you want to do the job, and you want to have a goal in sight. When it's a moving target, it sometimes gets kind of frustrating."
Cabana and his crew should have taken up Unity last December but were sidelined when a cash crunch prevented the Russians from completing the third station component. The still-unfinished service module contains the crucial life-support and flight-control systems and is supposed to go into orbit next summer, almost 1 1/2 years late.
Russia joined the 16-nation international space station effort in 1993. NASA had hoped the move would salvage a program that had been foundering since President Reagan proposed a permanently
orbiting lab in his 1984 State of the Union message.
Rather than save time and money, the Russian participation resulted in a full year's delay in assembly and has cost NASA billions of dollars — $60 million alone to bail out the service module.
NASA officials said they were committed to keeping the Russians on board despite the country's economic turmoil.
"We believe we've eliminated the funding issue, which has really been the driver to the delays," said program manager Randy Brinkley.
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