UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesdav. August 31, 1994
918
Traditional family unit disappearing
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Barely more than half of American children live in what many think of as the traditional family.
Thirty-three million children live in nuclear households with both natural parents and full brothers or sisters, a new Census Bureau analysis found.
The bureau said well over 15 million live in one-parent families, while nearly 10 million are in so-called blended families, which include either a stepparent or step-sibling, or both.
Extended families account for nearly eight million youngsters under age 18. Those families include others in the household such as uncles, cousins, aunts or grandparents.
The 33.4 million youngsters in nuclear families accounted for 50.8 percent of all young people, according to the report, "The Diverse Living Arrangements of Children, Summer 1991," released Monday.
While past studies have reported the relationship of children to the head of a household, Census officials said this was the first to relate children to all members of their household.
The bureau noted that the "decline of the American family continues to be a controversial topic," with many people considering the nuclear family the traditional unit. Census researchers limited their study to reporting the numbers of various family and household arrangements, however.
The study disclosed sharp differences in children's living arrangements by race and Hispanic origin.
For example, 56.4 percent of white children resided in nuclear families with both parents, while just 25.9 percent of black youngsters lived in such households. For Hispanics the figure was 37.8 percent. Hispanics can be of any race and thus are also counted among blacks and whites.
Among white youngsters, 19.1 percent lived in one-parent families, with mothers accounting for 16.4 percent. Among black youths, 49.2 percent were in one-parent families, 46.7 percent with their mother. And 31.1 percent of Hispanic youths lived with one parent, 28.5 percent with the mother.
Just 1.7 percent of all youngsters live with their grandparents, 0.9 percent of whites, 5.4 percent of blacks and 1.3 percent of Hispanics.
The 9.8 million children in blended families had a variety of arrangements depending on whether the blend involved a stepparent, step-sibling, half-sibling or some combination of these.
The most common situation was for a child to have a halfbrother or half-sister.
Officer's privacy is more important
Simpson's lawyers cannot view records
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Ajudge rejected a request from O.J. Simpson's lawyers to examine a police detective's military records, ruling yesterday that they have no bearing on defense suggestions that the officer is a racist and a liar.
"Having heard the argument by counsel for the defendant alleging racial animus and propensity to fabricate ... the court reviewed the military file and found no reports or other information relevant to the issues in this case," Superior Court Judge Lance Ita said in a written order.
He said he weighed the privacy rights of Detective Mark Fuhman against the rights of Simpson to gather evidence for his defense and decided against turning over Fuhman's Marine Corps records.
Ito, who heard arguments on the issue Monday, did not rule on the defense bid for review of Fuhrman's police records.
Io said he would seal the military file and place it in the court record so that it will be available for appellate review only.
Fuhrman is a key witness in the Simpson case because he said he found a bloody glove behind Simpson's estate. He has been placed on indefinite vacation leave, police Cmdr David Gascon said yesterday.
Logging would create additional debris and require new roads, and the vast majority of forest fires are caused by humans who travel deep into forests on logging roads, Yassa said.
The NRDC prefers a long-term strategy for reducing fire threats that includes non-commercial thinning of trees and removal of debris.
Some 23,000 firefighters are still battling 29 major fires that have burned more than 452,000 acres in five Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.
But Sami Yassa, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco, called the bill Herger has introduced "a pretext for accelerated logging in the Sierra Nevada."
"Our forests are denoting like napalm bombs," Herger said. "We need to remove dead and dying bug-killed timber."
"It has very little to do with forest health." Yasaa said.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — U.S. Rep.
Wally Herger wants to save tinder-dry
California forests by logging them.
The California Republican demanded Monday that Congress declare a state of emergency in federal forests to permit quick removal of dead trees, fallen branches and other debris that fuels fires.
The 3 million acres burned by all Western wildfires this year is double the amount that had burned by this time last year, the center said.
The state of emergency would include the suspension of requirements for archaeological studies and environmental impact statements before logging.
— Full containment was predicted for Thursday for an 8,000-acre fire that burned eight homes near Sams Valley, Ore., and threatened hundreds more.
Futhran's lawyer said earlier the detective was having trouble doing
Anonymous defense sources have said they considered portraying Fuhrman, who is white, as a racist who could have planted evidence to incriminate Simpson, who is black.
his job due to the publicity surrounding his role in the case.
— In California, firefighters expected to contain a 4,700-acre fire about 50 miles west of Fresno by tonight. The fire started Wednesday when a squirrel short-circited an electric company powerhouse.
State of emergency may be declared in California forests
In a motion suggesting both orders are unconstitutional, media attorney Kelli Sager cited other high-profile cases, including those of Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan and the Watergate conspirators, and said overwhelming publicity did not deny those defendants fair trials.
Simpson, 47, is charged in the June 12 slashing murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. He will be back in court today for a hearing on a proposed gag order and evidence discovery, including a mystery envelope turned over to another judge by the defense.
The Associated Press
In other states:
discussed in open court.
"Certainly there has been widespread media attention to this case," Sager said of the Simpson affair. "But it is hardly unprecedented."
more blood than detectives thought existed in the vehicle. The report said use of a chemical which shows blood under a black light disclosed "more blood than someone would have left who just cut their finger unless they bled like a pig."
Ito has agreed to hear from the media and other interested parties before imposing the gag order, which would stop participants from talking to reporters. He has already ordered that all filings be sealed until they are
— CNN also reported that the interior light bulb from the Bronco had been removed and was found under a front seat. The network said sources quoted detectives wondering if Simpson removed the bulb so no one would see him when he opened the door near his ex-wife's condominium.
Ito also plans to hear defense complaints today that prosecutors are not being as forthcoming as they should be in disclosing the evidence they have against Simpson.
— The network also reported that an employee of the parking garage where the Bronco was towed was fired for rifling the vehicle for souvenirs and stealing Simpson's gas receipts.
In other developments yesterday:
CNN reported that chemical treatment of the Bronco revealed
H-bomb pilot approves of exhibit change
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The man who piloted the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima says he approves of the Smithsonian institution's decision to redesign a controversial exhibit on the bombing.
But like some critics, he's still not fully satisfied.
"There has been, at least, an admission on the part of the Smithsonian that they really lacked balance and
context' in the exhibit, said retired Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibets.
Responding to pressure from members of Congress and veterans' groups, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum announced Monday it will expand the exhibit on the American bombing of Japan in World War II.
The expanded exhibit will detail events in the Pacific War leading to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the museum said in a statement.
But Tibbets, 79, said he was unhappy that the exhibit still will include only a part, the front fuselage, of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the world's first A-bomb, on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.
By displaying the bomber without its wings or other parts, the museum will "disgrace" it, he said in a telephone interview. "I think there should be a modification made there."
Veterans' groups and military historians lack the atomic bomb exhibit lacked balance because it failed to provide adequate explanation of the events leading up to the bombing.
"We felt that their concerns were valid, and we think this new exhibit — coupled with changes within the original exhibition — addresses those concerns," said Martin Harwit, the museum's director.
One scene in Dallas represents scenes played out in urban areas across nation
The Associated Press
DALLAS—Her eyes are the color of dirt, and as vacant as the lot next door.
She's sitting on a concrete step holding a baby that's not hers. Her 16-year-old friend is lying face down on the sizzling sidewalk beside her, his arms arched awkwardly behind him, his hands cuffed in plastic police ties. A girlfriend is similarly contorted at her feet.
“What’s your name?” a policewoman asks this hot August day in Dallas. In a low, slow whisper, she answers, “I atasha.”
"La-what?"
"La-Tasha," the thin, moon-faced 19-year-old says with slightly more effort, her blank gaze never looking higher than the holster holding the officer's 9 mm semiautomatic.
Minutes ago, eight muscular members of the Dallas drug enforcement squad, wearing black boots and bulletproof vests, had stormed the faded yellow bungalow behind her. It took two heaves of "the slammer" to break down the door, blocked by a bookcase that held no books.
"Police! Police!" they yelled, leaping one-by-one over the splintered wooden door that had given way two-thirds down.
Shreks from inside, then blurs of motion as the young man bolted out the rear and the woman ran toward
the back fence. Latasha Smith never said a word, and the baby didn't cry. Lying on a rumpled bed with the baby in her arms, she didn't move until told.
She has the dull look of someone who had seen this rerun too many times. Her look of despair, so deep it turns everything gray, is the same look that flattens the faces of the young and hopeless in poor, violent American neighborhoods everywhere.
Neighborhoods where crack heads fear their friends and neighbors more than the cops. Where homes are so filthy detectives can't pick up evidence without something crawling on it. Where neighbors scatter when someone screams for help.
For Americans who say crime is their gravest concern, these calloused Latashas and their criminal friends stir angry fear. But for Latasha, it's just another day, just another messed-up day.
Barefoot from bed, Latasha has slouched her way around errant splinters from the door, across the lawn with no grass, to perch on the concrete step at the sidewalk, her feet spread wide and an orange knit skirt sagging between her knees.
The baby with cocoa skin and wavy brown hair spits up on Latasha's chest as she rocks negligibly back and forth. Indifferently, she wipes his face with her droopy white tank top. Scratching her face with her long,
rainbow-painted nails, Latasha leaves a trail of creamy baby vomit on her cheek.
"Who's payin' for that baby?" the policewoman asks.
"It ain't MY babv." she retorts.
"It's my baby," says the 16-year-old boy, squirring awkwardly on the sidewalk. As he strains to lift his head to speak, the pebbles clinging to his cheek dribble to the ground.
The waist of his knee-length shorts, usually hip-hanging low, now are shimmled down to his thighs, fully exposing his boxer shorts, flasy with a red diamond pattern on white. His undershrift is pulled up around his chest, revealing a scar just below his left ribs. The police think it's an old gunshot wound. No, he says, just an operation.
Latasha tells the officer she has three children of her own and she's on welfare. She quit the last job she had washing dishes because she didn't like it. Her children are scattered with relatives and friends today.
"Did you grow up like this baby is growing up?" the reporter asks.
"My dady shot my momma dead when1w2." S. she speaks flatly, like a kid bored with homework. She was raised by her grandfather. She
She doesn't explain why she is at this house that isn't hers holding somebody else's baby.
An undercover officer recently
bought drugs at this house. The police had come back to clean it up and close it down — one of nearly 400 Dallas doe houses stormed this year.
It is the third bust for the team on this 98-degree Dallas day. Sweat crawls down their backs like insects under their heavy flak jackets.
One officer emerges with a $10 rock of cocaine and a snapshot found inside on a coffee table, of a teen-ager pointing a gun at the camera. The gun barrel is huge in perspective and partially obscures his face, but he looks tough.
Where is he? the officer asks the three teens.
In jail for murder, they say, but he didn't do it.
After running background checks on the three, the sergeant in charge decides to arrest the handcuffed youths on drug charges and ticket Latasha for failing to appear in court after being cited for driving without insurance.
She shrugs.
"Do you ever dream of a better life?" the reporter asks.
She doesn't watch the van carry her two friends away. She just sits in front of the house with the For Rent sign and the broken door, holding someone else's baby, and stares blankly at the vacant next door.
Sports Combination Ticket Distribution
Read this before picking up your tickets.
YOUR ASSIGNED PICK-UP DATE IS AS FOLLOWS:
Where: Memorial Stadium, South End, Underneath the scoreboard.
Time: 8:30 am - 4:00 pm
Dates: (see schedule below)
A-E Monday, August 29
F-K Tuesday, August 30
L-R Wednesday, August 31
S-Z Thursday, September 1
(Make-Up) Friday, September 2
- If you miss your assigned pick-up date you may pick-up your tickets at the Athletic Ticket Office in the East lobby of Allen Fieldhouse.
- You may pick up only your own ticket.
- You must bring your KUID with a current FALL 1994 fee sticker to receive your tickets.
- You will receive your football tickets only at this time. You will receive the Men's Basketball and Kansas Relays portion of your sports combo at a later date. More detailed information will be available at pick-up.
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PRE-MED CLUB
Information meeting with Advisors
Thursday, September 1st Watkins Health Center Conference Room 7:00pm
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