University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, April 25, 1990
3B
Brian T. Schoeni/KANSAN
The St. Mary's College Chamber Singers perform in Hashinger Hall to Inaugurate Spring Arta Week
Hashinger celebrates Spring Arts
Hashinger Hall residents were serenaded at dinner Monday night by St. Mary's College chamber building and Hashinger's Spring Arts Week.
"We have spring arts because we are the creative arts residence hall," said Kirk Isenhour, current Hashinger president. "It is to
promote and show off our residents' talent."
Spring Arts week costs about $2,500 to produce, Isenhour said. The events were financed by the hall government and the Association of University Residence Halls, which donated $500.
Pludun Co. at 7:30 tonight in the Hashinger theater.
Scheduled events are:
Presentation by Ed Paschke, Chicago artist, at 7:30 tonight in the theater.
Performance art by the Marsha
Jazz Night Club with the KU Jazz Band 2 and Jazz Band Combo at 7:30 tomorrow night in the theater.
p. m. Friday on Hashinger's front porch.
Open-mic talent show at 8:30 p.m. Friday in the theater.
Tie-dyeing with KJHK at 3:30
- Sculpture dedication and dessert on Hashinger's front porch at 1 p.m. Saturnav.
Hash High awards at 7:30 p.m. and dance at 9 p.m. Saturday.
Faxes become a newsroom standard
Bv. James M. Kennedy
Associated Press writer
It was a milestone. The newsroom had installed its second fax machine.
NEW YORK — It began bleeping and chugging as soon as it was hooked to the phone line.
The Business News department of The Associated Press is one speck in the journalism universe, but that speck has been drowning in faxes.
What better way to celebrate Earth Day than to double our consumption of slick white fax paper, much of it carrying publicity about new commercial ventures to protect the environment.
So much so that we were compelled to buy a second machine to keep our heads above the tidal wave of faciesms generated by corporate America and its public relations people.
Ah, well, that's life in the business world today. The fax movement may be out of control, but it's bigger than all of us. You must learn to swim with
the faxes or sink.
The facsimile machine has become the medium of choice for releasing news. Only a few years ago, reporters and editors still relied on the morning mail or the courthouse switch to provide their daily diet of news tips. Today, the high-pitched beep of the fax machine is the rolling call for journalists.
Publishers are not just on the receiving end. Newspapers around the country are offering facsimile news reports themselves, taking news destined for the regular newspaper and repackaging it into briefings suitable for electronic transmission to busy executives.
Why not? Fax machines are everywhere. You don't have to be a busy executive to get access to a fax. The corner newstand offers a machine that can accept a fax or receive or receiving a fax. The post office does, too.
There's even a company in Toronto, the From Group, that markets faxable greeting cards. So, when mom gets her fax, you can wish her a happy
whatever electronically.
It may not be long before mom gets one. Prices of machines are failing and sales are rising, both dramatically. In 1989, the average price of a facsimile machine fell 9.4 percent to $2,121.
Which means more fax transmissions.
The question raised by all of this growth is whether more fax machines will lead to better or worse communications. That's essentially the newsroom's second machine.
If we now have two machines, one for stock market data and the other for company news releases, will we get more news faster or just more clutter?
The fax machine is a great invention, but if users promote junk rather than real communication, fax delivery may go the way of the mail.
Of course, we could always hook up the fax to a caller I.D. system and screen out the junk.
There's an idea.
The newest craze: Slow dancing and swaying to music
The Associated Press
That's sweet music for dance school operators who stand to benefit the most
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — The Brazilian bamboo dance craze may be the fad in some circles, but a resurgence of old-fashioned ballroom dancing also is sweeping couples back into each other's arms.
"People are turning away from the loud noise and that sort of thing," said Richard Stephenson, author of *Complete Book of Ballroom Dancing*.
There are plenty of people willing to teach them. Across the nation, local adult education programs are trying to meet the demands for more high school and West Virginia recently opened the Academy of Ballroom Dance.
"The market is everywhere," said Rebecca Richardson, co-owner of the Huntington academy. "If people go out and see the cha-cha or the rumba, they like it. They don't know what it is, but they like it.
"They would like to get back into other types of dancing, but the problem is they don't know any other type of dancing."
"It's ballroom dancing."
The United States' departure from ballroom dancing is blamed in part on rock 'n' roll and the 60s movement away from tradition. It was downright difficult to try ballroom moves to a rock 'bunny' Buddy Holly tune and it became gauche for men to lead a dance during the women's move.
"Women found that they wanted to be able to stand alone," said Tom Cyrus, Richardson's partner.
But, alas, romance has re-entered the picture.
Ballroom dancing also was hurt by fly-by-night dance hall instructors who insisted that 80-year old widows needed 20 years' worth of lessons.
There always was some demand for ballroom dance lessons during the rock and disco years, but nothing like there is today. Richardson said.
"It's not 70-year-olds going to clubs bringing back ballroom dancing," she said. "It's the younger people."
Stephenson wrote his book with a Connecticut dance instructor in 1980 after noting a resurgence in ballroom dancing on their college campus.
"One of the house mothers called him and suggested he come over to her dorm. Stephen said she did, and they danced on the carpet in the old dormitory."
Ballroom dancing involves intricate balance, said dancer and choreographer Marge Champion.
Stephenson still sells about 3,000 copies of the hardcover book each year, he said.
"It's no fun to dance unless you really have a partner who you can communicate with, who with her husband, Gower, worked on Broadway and toured
'Students now realize this is an important way to interact with the opposite sex. Some students were so hung up that if they put their arm around their partner, it was an invitation to go to bed with them.'
— Richard Stephenson
author
clubs and television shows in the 1940s and '50s.
Dave and Anne Griffin of Huntington recently glided, sputtered then glided again through their fourth dance lesson.
Griffin had a few lessons as a rounder, but Anne Griffin had never touched a dance floor in a formal setting.
"All I ever did was all college kids do — go to the local joint and do whatever everyone else was doing," she said.
Griffin, who was formerly in law school and now is finishing medical school, said that in some social-busi-ness programs knowing how to dance was an asset.
"I muddled around out there and hoped that nobody would notice," he said. "Most of the time, I sat on the side."
Stephenson, who also has written two chemical engineering textbooks, cited the romantic benefits.
"A lot of people who meet in the dance classes end up getting married," he said. "The types of kids you're going to meet in the dance class are probably a lot more compatible than ones you're going to meet at bars and lounges."
Many high schools have turned gymnasiums used for physical education classes into temporary dance halls, with teachers breaking out square dance or waltz records and telling students to pair up.
Stephenson said the teachers were trying to teach proper behavior.
"Students now realize this is an important way to interact with the opposite sex," he said. "Some students were so up hung that if they put their arm around their partner, it invited to go to bed with them."
But dancing is just supposed to be fun, said Aileen Clemens of Anhail, Ky., who, at 87, is the Huntington dance academy's oldest student.
"I want to dance like those girls in the beautiful dresses on TV," she said.
Purdue is launch pad for new astronauts
The Associated Press
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University's graduate roll reads a space traveler's "Who's Who"—two alumni were the first and last men to walk on the moon, while others pepper the American astronaut corps like bright stars in the Milk Way.
Purdue's School of Aeronautics and Astronautics has been labeled the mother of astronauts by students and teachers. Nineteen graduates from Purdue have been more than any other non-military institution, school officials said.
The most recent graduates to join the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's elite corps were Janice Vos, a 1975 graduate, and who graduated in 1978. They were among 23 recruits named in 1980.
Aeronautics and astronautics engineering graduates are involved in everything from designing conventional aircraft and advising government officials of space programs to plotting future missions. He also administers vegetable gardens in space, said Winthrop A. Gustafson, astronautics professor.
Purdue officials are proud, but they deny their sole goal is to prepare people to飞 shuttlets or walk in space. Students with the "right stuff" complete arduous programs in flight as well as aeronautics and aviation.
"We don't set out to train astronauts," said Alten F. Grandi JR, dean of the astronautics school. "We set out to give them the best fundamental engineering training we can."
Undergraduate enrollment has rocketed from 299 in 1989 to 573, making it one of the largest programs of its kind in the nation. The school also has 141 graduate students.
"The kind of person who attends Purdue is the kind of person NASA craves," said astronaut Greg Harness, a 1978 graduate. "They favor good, solid Midwesterners who raised their skills with the work ethic."
NASA officials in Houston say 197 astronauts have been named since 1969. Purdue and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are tied as the non-military centers with the highest number of graduates selected for the astronaut corps with 17 each. NASA says.
The school does not prepare its curriculum to meet NASA's needs, Gustafson said. But the possibility of qualifying for space travel has been an added draw to this sprawling, central Indiana campus.
Heroin still prevalent drug in U.S.
"Yes, it's a goal, but it's such a long-term goal. ... It's little like being in the right place at the right time," said Cockey, whose more immei- tible degree is bachelor's and graduate degrees and work as a test pilot.
Charissa Cosky, a senior in aerodynamics and participant in the Air Force ROTC program, said she and her team has established hope to become astronauts.
Purdue also has produced two payload specialists, people trained by NASA to perform specific duties in space. The main members of the astronaut corps.
Perhaps the best known alumus is Neil A. Armstrong, who graduated in 1955 and became the first man to walk on the moon, on July 20, 1969. He was also the last man to become America's last man to touch the lunar surface 36 years later.
early impetus for the "mother of astronauts" nickname is linked to an agreement with the Air Force in making them qualified. Purdue to receive advanced degrees;
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Outside a Bronx apartment building, a postal worker sits in his parked car with a load of mail in his trunk. He's not making a delivery, he's waiting for one — five packets of heroin.
Inside the terminal at JFK International Airport, U.S. Customs agents await a flight from Nigeria. Its passengers must be closely monitored. In the past five months, agents have recovered more than 340 pounds of heroin from passengers arriving from West Africa.
"Four years ago, crack came out and became THE big thing," said U.S. Customs official David Ripa. The kind of grown during that time."
Tony Contorno, supervisory U.S. Customs inspector at JFK, said, "This is the heroin capital of the world," and any place else in heroin seizures."
In the age of the crack cocaine craze and designer drugs like ecstasy and ice, heroin still has maintained its long grin on New York City.
In fact, evidence indicates that heroin is enjoying a renaissance in the drug culture.
Customs workers at JFK have posted a hand-printed sign on the office door:
"While we stand with our thumb in the dike against a tidal wave of cocaine, we are sinking in the quick-sand of heroin."
Other officials in the drug war confirm what's been obvious to Conteino: The heroin trade has continued unabated for years and is expanding. The amount of heroin seized rationally by Customs officials thus far in fiscal 1980 projects is up to 2,400 pounds for the year — nearly four times what was recovered in 1987.
The Drug Enforcement Administration reported similarly striking jumps in seizures. The total amount of heroin recovered in the last two
in the age of the crack cocaine craze and designer drugs like ecstasy and ice, heroin has maintained its long grip on New York City. In fact, evidence indicates that heroin is enjoying a renaissance in the drug culture.
fiscal years was more than double what it was in 1987.
"I's growing. There's no question about it," said DEA spokesman Cornelia Brophy in Washington. The buoyancy of the quantity, up the quality "up."
Roughly half the heroin seized each year in the United States is recovered in the New York area.
Sterling Johnson, state special prosecutor for narcotics, said, "Everybody talks about the French Connection case, but last year we seized more than 800 pounds in one sweep."
The French Connection bust, which inspired a hit movie, netted 220 pounds of heroin, a startling amount for the late 1890s. But it bites in comparison with last year's Operation White Mare.
In that February 1989 case, agenita busted a ring and recovered 295 pounds of heroin worth $1 billion. In February 1990, a bust of 92.7 pounds of heroin caused barely a media ripple. In both cases, there was no dramatic falloff in heroin availability, authorities said.
heroin business after a crackdown on the Mafia, which culminated in the Pizza Connection trial.
both these arrests involved shipments from the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia, the countries of Laos, Burma and Thailand, which federal authorities say now is the major supplier of heroin to the United States. Chinese-organized crime figures were able to move into the
Despite that law enforcement coup, the heroin trade bounced back. The drug was entrenched in the inner city. Statistics show just how deeply Last year, 19 percent of the arrests by the city's Tactical Narcotics Team involved heroin cases, compared to 1 percent in 1988. Heroin arrests by the police narcotics division were up 80 percent in 1989.
A record number of drug mules — hired corridors who swallow condoms packed with dope and carry them into the U.S. — are importing a record amount of heroin. Between October 1988 and September 1989, 97 mules were caught bringing in 138 pounds of heroin; 87 mules were busted in the next 4½ months, with the same amount of heroin seized.
Although no drugs were recovered, the Pizza Connection case exposed an international conspiracy to trade cocaine for heroin, which in turn was distributed nationwide through pizzerias and U.S. Mafia. Eighteen of 19 defendants were convicted on March 2, 1987.
The country has 500,000 to 600,000 heroin addicts, with an estimated one-third to one-half of them in New York City. The number of heroin addicts receiving treatment has remained constant in recent years, said Steve D'Nistor of Phoenix
House, a Manhattan-based treatment center.
what they've seen more of in recent months is people using heroin as a crack parachute, easing them out of the cocaine or the cocaine derivative, he said.
Others prefer "chasing the dragon," or smoking heroin, said Capt. Robert Cividanes of the Narcotics Division.
"Smoking heroin is in vogue." Cividanes said, attributing its popularity to the fear of AIDS, which often is spread by shared needles.
While most heroin in recent years came from the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia, heroin from West Africa is being shipped to Nigeria, now is reaching the market.
"In 1892, we arrested one Nigerian for heroin. The next year, it was 23. Now, it's in the hundreds," said Customs official Gary Murray.
Officials expect Pakistan heroin to be the next new source. Johnson says Pakistan has 1.3 million heroin addicts.
Unlike the Asians, who operate in a fashion similar to the Mafia, the West Africans operate free-lance, bringing the heroin in and selling it themselves or through a pre-arranged contact.
"They're independent contractors." Johnson said.
The Nigerian couriers can make about $4,000 per trip, roughly 10 times the average annual Nigerian income. Risa said.
In the past, crime and wrecked lives were the worst by-products of heroin addiction. Now AIDS has been added to the equation.
Since the first quarter of 1985, there have been more reported cases of intravenous drug users contracting AIDS than of gay males, said Health Department spokesman Sam Friedman.
"This is the future of the epidemic, and the future is here," Friedman said.