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(10/25/04 5:41am)
More than 1,400 potential sorority members were out in full force Saturday and Sunday participating in 19 party, the first phase of the greek recruitment process. \nThe women donned matching black long sleeve shirts highlighting the 19 reasons to go greek on the back, and starting at 11 a.m. Saturday and Sunday could be seen trekking from house to house. They visited 10 houses the first day, and the remaining nine the second.\nGroups of 70 to 80 potential pledges, chosen alphabetically, were accompanied by four or five recruitment counselors. The counselors, also called Rho Gammas, are sorority members who disaffiliate themselves from their houses to help women through the process. They do not reveal anything about themselves that would give away the house they belong to, including last names and sometimes even first names. \nRho Gammas are usually in charge of one floor of a dormitory, and have between 10 to 30 women in each group.\nEach group spends a half-hour at each of the 19 houses, talking to members and sometimes taking a tour. Members welcome groups into the house by banging on windows and doors while clapping and chanting their house cheer. Much of the rest of the day is spent traveling between houses and waiting for the next party to begin. Sororities use this time to prepare for the next party, while Rho Gammas take attendance for their group. Women must attend all 19 parties to be eligible for a bid.\nOne traditional responsibility of Rho Gammas is to make name-tags for all the women in their group, and they take this job seriously. Many times the creative tags are elaborate, using glitter and unique themes to set the groups apart. Pink elephants, sparkly flamingos, Polar Pop cups and snowmen were some of the tags recruits wore this year.\nWomen either walked or rode special recruitment buses that shuttled the potentials to different sorority houses. Many said they were grateful for the ride Saturday when it rained for much of the day; but even the uncooperative weather couldn't ruin the event.\n"The weather was horrible this morning," said Michelle, one of the Rho Gammas who declined to give her last name, as she waited outside Delta Gamma with her group Saturday night. "We're all wet, our feet are wet ... but everyone is hanging in there. If we get through today, then tomorrow will be easy."\nJamie, another recruitment counselor, was impressed with the way the women in her group handled the inconvenience.\n"They kept their morale up even though the weather was bad," she said. "They were all so positive and happy."\nThe women were rewarded Sunday with sunny skies and temperatures in the upper 60s. \nRain or shine, most women saw their experience during 19 party as a positive one, and planned on continuing with the process.\nFreshman Jaclyn Goldman said although she was getting tired by the end of the first day, she was still having fun.\n"I thought it would be stressful, but the (sorority members) are really nice," she said. "It's laid back ... except for when they pound on the door before we go in."\nGoldman said she thinks she will like being in a sorority because "there is always something to do, and always someone to go out with."\nSophomore sorority members are also going though a new experience; this year they are on the other side of the recruitment process.\n"It's very different, but interesting," said Libby Hiple, sophomore member of Delta Gamma. "It's just as nerve-wracking because I want to portray a positive image for my chapter."\nHiple also said the days seemed to go faster for her this year because she didn't have any waiting to do.\n"Things go on (in the house) in the 20 minutes between parties that I didn't know about last year," she said.\nFor her, one of the most challenging aspects of the parties is keeping up good conversation with the potential members she meets.\n"At times it can be difficult because everyone is kind of nervous, and so it sometimes seems forced. The little awkward silences can get weird," she said. "But other times it just flows, it really depends on the person."\nDespite this, Hiple said she is having a great time hearing everyone's story, and encourages women to join a house.\n"On the whole, the greek community is a very unifying force," she said. "In my chapter specifically, we have people from all over. We have women with 4.0s, women who like to stay in, some who like to go out ... you can't have that many people in one house and not learn to appreciate everyone's differences."\nJunior member of Alpha Omicron Pi Ashley Ray also said she was enjoying recruitment this year.\n"There are a lot of good women coming through this year," Ray said Sunday morning. "The house is energetic and excited to continue today."\nRay said the best part of the process is meeting potential members, but it is sometimes difficult to get to know the person in such a small amount of time.\n"It's hard because you want to give all the women the same amount of attention as you gave the first person," she said. "It's also a long weekend on little or no sleep."\nSorority members sometimes stay up till the early hours of the morning after the parties are finished. Alpha Omicron Pi members were not finished until nearly 2 a.m. after the first round of parties.\nFreshman Julia Huber, a Bloomington native, said the whole experience has given her a different view of the houses she used to drive by and think of as pretty mansions.\n"I now know the (women) that live in the houses," Huber said. "It gives them a whole new perspective and meaning."\n-- Contact staff writer Haley Beck at habeck@indiana.edu.
(10/19/04 5:25am)
Fire damages restaurant in Fort Wayne\nFORT WAYNE -- Fire swept through a century-old downtown building on Monday, heavily damaging a longtime restaurant.\nFirefighters were called to Henry's Restaurant about 9:30 a.m. and found flames and smoke coming from the windows of a second-floor apartment in the two-story brick structure. No injuries were reported, and three people who were inside the restaurant at the time escaped unharmed.\nRestaurant manager Chris Vasquez said he smelled the smoke before he saw any flames and that it appeared the fire started over the restaurant and bar.\nThe restaurant has been owned by John Freistroffer for 27 years, and his family has owned the building for nearly 50 years.\nFreistroffer and Vasquez were visibly distraught as they watched the flames and thick smoke pour from the building.\n"It's hard to watch this," said Vasquez, who's worked at Henry's for nearly three decades. "You've got so much in it, and it's gone so quick."\nIt took firefighters about 30 minutes to bring the blaze under control. Investigators did not immediately know the fire's cause.
(10/07/04 4:25am)
Columbus council votes down proposed smoking ban\nCOLUMBUS, Ind. -- The City Council rejected a proposed ban on smoking in most public places, surprising the mayor, Fred Armstrong, who said he planned to continue pushing for the measure.\nThe council voted 4-3 on Tuesday against the ban, after it had been amended to remove an exception for bars and private clubs that the council members had approved two weeks earlier.\nThe vote came after nearly two hours of public comments on the proposal, with about three dozen speakers divided almost evenly between supporters and dissenters. More than 250 people attended the council meeting, which was held in the Columbus East High School auditorium after previous discussions of the smoking ban drew capacity crowds at City Hall.\nCouncilman Tom Hodek, who voted against the ban, said he was still struggling to make a decision and hoped to come up with a more balanced compromise for the city about 40 miles south of Indianapolis.\nArmstrong said he would bring the ordinance back to the council, but did not know when.\n"We're not going to let this fall by the wayside," he said. "I think this is a loss for the community."\nBan supporters spoke during the meeting about the health dangers of second-hand smoke, while those against the proposal talked about individual rights and the effect on businesses.\n"I think the board made a great decision for the community," resident Marty Sutton said. "I believe that all smokers have rights."
(10/05/04 4:48am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Insurgents unleashed a pair of powerful car bombs Monday near the symbol of U.S. authority in Iraq -- the Green Zone, where the U.S. Embassy and key government offices are located -- and hotels occupied by hundreds of foreigners. Three other explosions brought the day's bombing toll to at least 24 dead and more than 100 wounded.\nMore than three dozen car bombings since the beginning of September illustrate the militants' seeming ability to strike at will despite recent pledges by the United States and Iraq to intensify the suppression of insurgents, and the morale-boosting recapture of Samarra over the weekend.\nThe day's violence also included assassinations of three Iraqis, and U.S. attacks against targets in insurgent-held Fallujah. In the latest hostage developments, kidnappers freed two Indonesian women, but a separate militant group claimed to have killed a Turkish man and a longtime Iraqi resident of Italy.\nNo coalition forces were wounded in either of Monday's blasts in Baghdad, said Maj. Phil Smith, a spokesman for the 1st Cavalry Division. But the U.S. command reported two of its soldiers were killed at a Baghdad traffic checkpoint Sunday.\nIn the first car bombing Monday, insurgents detonated a four-wheel drive vehicle packed with explosives at the western entrance of the heavily fortified Green Zone about 8:45 a.m., said Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman.\n"I was thrown 10 yards away and hit the wall," said Wissam Mohammed, 30, who was visiting a nearby recruiting center for Iraqi security forces. His right hand broken, his head wrapped in bandages and his clothes stained with blood, Mohammed lay in a bed at Yarmouk Hospital.\nThe hospital took in 15 bodies and 81 wounded from the explosion, said Sabah Aboud, the facility's chief registration official.\nAn hour later, across the Tigris River, a pickup truck packed with dates and explosives plowed into a three-vehicle convoy as it left a parking lot shared by several high-rise hotels housing hundreds of foreign contractors and journalists.\nAs people rushed to help, gunmen began shooting from the rooftops and police returned fire, said Tahsin al-Kaabi of the Facility Protection Service, a U.S.-trained civilian guard force.\nAt least six people were killed and 15 wounded, said Tahsin al-Freiji, another guard force member.\nOne of the four-wheel drive vehicles was destroyed and the pickup truck carrying the explosives was ripped in half, with one part left dangling from a shop sign on the opposite side of the street.\nAt least five other cars were charred, including one of the targeted vehicles, which had a burned body in the front passenger seat. A head and other body parts were strewn in the road amid shards of glass.\n"I was on my way to work. We heard a big boom and I briefly passed out," said Razaq Hadi, 36, who was in a minibus that was damaged by the blast. "I saw seven of the passengers who were seriously wounded being taken out through the broken windows."\nThe driver was killed. "I saw his body torn apart," said Hadi, who was covered in the man's blood.\nBoth the Green Zone and the area around the hotels have been targets of previous attacks that have killed dozens of people.\nLast month saw at least 39 car bomb attacks in Iraq -- the highest number in any month since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. On Sept. 30, insurgents set off a series of vehicle explosives that killed at least 35 children and seven adults at a government ceremony in Baghdad.\nTwo more car bombs exploded Monday in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.\nOne of the blasts killed a civilian bystander and two people believed to be transporting explosives, said Capt. Angela Bowman, a military spokeswoman. Hospital officials said they treated 11 wounded. The second bomb targeted a U.S. Army convoy, wounding one American soldier, Bowman said.\nIn Baqouba, a city 35 miles northeast of the capital, a police commander was assassinated in a drive-by shooting, police said. Insurgents also fired mortar rounds at a municipal building, killing one person and wounding seven.\nThere were also assassinations in Baghdad, where gunmen killed a senior official of Iraq's Sciences and Technology Ministry and a female employee near the southeastern Zayona suburb, Abdul-Rahman said.\nMonday's violence came despite promises by U.S. and Iraqi officials to crack down on insurgents ahead of elections slated for January and wrest key parts of the country from their control.\nIn Fallujah, American warplanes unleashed strikes against suspected terrorist hideouts and weapons caches early Monday. At least 11 people, including three women and four children, died in the attacks and 12 others were wounded, hospital officials said.\nThe military, which regularly accuses hospitals of inflating casualty figures, said the strikes targeted followers of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.\nThe military said a "precision strike" hit a building where about 25 insurgents were moving weapons on the outskirts of Fallujah. Intelligence sources said insurgents were using the site to store weapons and conduct training, the military said in a statement.\nCoalition forces also struck a site where members of al-Zarqawi's network were believed to be meeting, another military statement said.\nIt was the latest in weeks of strikes in the city 40 miles west of Baghdad aimed at groups with links to terrorists, particularly al-Zarqawi's network. Followers of the Jordanian militant have claimed responsibility for a string of deadly bombings, kidnappings and other attacks across the country.\nIn Samarra, 60 miles northwest of Baghdad, U.S. troops patrolled in tanks, armored personnel carriers and Humvees as sporadic gunfire broke the relative calm Monday. U.S. soldiers, accompanied by Iraqi translators carrying lists, entered houses asking about specific people.\nIraqi National Guard forces have captured 40 foreign fighters, including Egyptians, Sudanese and a Tunisian, since entering Samarra early Friday, Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan told Arab TV network Al-Arabiya.\nIn other developments:\n-- U.S. Marines, patrolling the militant stronghold of Ramadi, killed two insurgents and wounded a third while two civilians were also wounded during the gun battle Sunday, a military spokesman said. Dr. Dia'a al-Haity at the Ramadi General Hospital said five men were killed and five wounded, including one woman, in the incident.\n-- Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski said Monday he sees the end of 2005 as a possible date for ending the country's mission in Iraq, the first time the key United States ally has indicated when it might pull its soldiers out of the country.\n-- The headless body of a police officer, still in his uniform, was discovered in the area of Kirkuk, north of Baghdad.
(09/07/04 4:38am)
Legacy of the empty McDonald's\nJoetta Hinton's Sept. 2 article "Chipotle comes to Kirkwood," while accurate, omitted quite a lot about the closed store's story. \nTrue, McDonald's was a place to meet friends or family while it was open, but it did not cease to be such a place when it closed. In fact, it was the meeting grounds for several groups. Food not Bombs gave food to the hungry every Sunday and chess players could often be seen at the tables. A guerilla garden had sprung up complete with tiny angel figurines and a mint plant, which was perfect for tea. And the boarded-up windows had been covered in murals. \nWhat was once a hallmark of corporate capitalism had been transformed into a community autonomous zone. \nThe old McDonald's was a place to sit and chat in the shade and a place to run to when it began to rain. Replacing it with another chain that exploits its workers, pollutes the environment, attempts to drive out local business and destroys family farms by maintaining industrialized agriculture will be the true eyesore. \nWe can only hope that Chipotle will soon meet the same fate as its predecessor.
(09/07/04 4:20am)
The third anniversary is a mystery. \nIn 2001, I was sitting in my high school U.S. government and politics class when, at 9 a.m., our principal asked every classroom to turn on their TVs. The weeks following were unforeseeable and unscripted, yet somehow Americans knew what to do. We tuned into the news, said hello to strangers and hoisted American flags.\nIn 2002, the distance between my family and I was difficult enough for my first couple weeks as a freshman. Though the first anniversary wasn't easy, it was predictable enough that I knew how to spend the day. I sat on the steps of Showalter Fountain, listening to the voices of IU students who lost their parents in the World Trade Center. And I read The New York Times' special remembrance edition that published a picture of every victim.\nLast year as the Nation & World editor for the Indiana Daily Student, I was in charge of the "Two Years Later" edition. I was too busy with planning, editing and producing the section that I couldn't take a moment to personally reflect.\nBut what will I do on Sept. 11 this year? As of right now, my only plans are to work 5 to 11 p.m. delivering ice cream. But somehow I feel this is a cheap way of remembering the worst day in our nation's history. \nIn the last few years, the meaning of the phrase "September 11th" has become blurred with the political aftermath. Politicians use it to advance their agendas and spark fear or resentment in the American people. \nWhen I Googled "9-11," the first Web site that popped up was about Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11." Now, close your eyes. Imagine it's Sept. 12, 2001. Would you have imagined this phrase - this day - would become such a source for political divide?\nThe shock has worn off and most Americans have returned to pre-9-11 tendencies. And at the risk of quoting a country singer: Have you forgotten?\nThe image of people jumping out of the burning World Trade Center still crosses my mind - and not just once in a while. The flag I displayed in my Louisville, Ky., home that day now drapes my dorm room window. I'm not a New Yorker, nor did I know anyone who died that day. But Sept. 11 is tattooed on my heart as much as it's tattooed in American history. \nI'm afraid this Saturday and future Sept. 11 anniversaries will be celebrated in the likes of Labor Day and Memorial Day. Sadly, Patriot Day will become just another hollow mark on the calendar. Most people will probably spend this Saturday like any other weekend. Both the Kerry and Bush campaigns will go on, claiming their initiatives are the best for a post-Sept. 11 world. Democrats will still claim President Bush didn't do enough to protect America, and Republicans will still claim Democrats are inherently unpatriotic. \nI don't want people to wake up Saturday morning and pretend this country is united. But could we all, for just one sacred day, forget about the bipartisan bickering instead of forgetting that more than 3,000 Americans were murdered? \nMy challenge for everyone on this campus, in this country and around the world is to pause from their weekend activities for 11 minutes. Don't think about the war on terror. Don't think about the Bush administration. Think about the mothers, fathers, husbands, wives and children who died terrible deaths. Then think about their families and how they will remember Sept. 11.\nRemembering 9-11 is not defined by politics, nor should it be associated with them in any way. Hopefully, after your 11 minutes is up, you will think the same way.
(09/06/04 6:01am)
BESLAN, Russia -- Wails of mourning echoed through the streets of this southern Russian town Sunday, and the region's top police officer offered his resignation in the wake of the school hostage-taking that left at least 350 people dead.\nFamilies were beginning the first of what will be a long and wrenching series of funerals -- with the death toll still uncertain and liable to rise. Some 180 people remained missing after the chaos that ended the standoff at the school. At the same time, many bodies remained unidentified, and it was unclear whether some of the missing were among the unnamed dead.\nThe number of dead forced a dramatic expansion of the cemetery in the industrial town of 30,000. Dozens of men dug graves in a football field-sized tract next to the cemetery Sunday morning, while surveyors across the road marked out new plots with wooden stakes and string.\nA shaken President Vladimir Putin went on national television Saturday to make a rare admission of Russian weakness in the face of an "all-out war" by terrorists. He told the Russian people that they must mobilize against terrorism and promised wide-ranging reforms to toughen security forces and root out corruption.\n"We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten," he said in an address aimed at responding to the grief, shock and anger felt by many after a string of terrorist attacks that have killed some 450 people in the past two weeks, apparently in connection with the war in Chechnya.\nAs a light rain fell, funeral processions snaked through the streets of Beslan on the way to the cemetery. Weeping mourners placed flowers and wreaths at the graves, including one where two sisters were being laid to rest together.\nAt the school at the center of the tragedy, windowsills were strewn with red and pink roses, and abandoned children's shoes littered the floor. People clutched photos of their relatives whom they had not found among neither the living nor the dead.\nCoffin lids stood outside the entrances to apartment buildings, and wailing could be heard from courtyards where families were cutting up meat for ritual meals.\n"I lost my boy," cried Svetlana Debloyeva, 42, whose rounds of hospitals and morgues have turned up no sign of her 11-year-old son Zaur. The two became separated during the chaotic, bloody end of the hostage crisis.\nThe regional health ministry said 180 people were missing after the three-day hostage crisis, which ended in a bloody wave of explosions and gunfire Friday when militants set off bombs rigged in the school gymnasium and commandos stormed the building.\nRussian media speculated that some of the missing could be among the wounded who were brought to various hospitals in the southern Russian region, unconscious or in too deep a state of shock to be able to identify themselves.\nAlso, many of the dead still had not been identified. The Interfax news agency said 184 bodies had been matched with names by mid-afternoon Sunday.\nThere were conflicting official reports of the death toll -- in part because of the large number of body fragments collected at the school. A duty officer at the North Ossetian health ministry said Sunday that 350 victims had been killed, but the region's deputy health minister, Taimuraz Revazov, later said only 324 were confirmed dead. Interfax quoted North Ossetian government spokesman Lev Dzugayev as saying the toll stood at 338.\nMore than 540 people were wounded -- mostly children. Medical officials said 423 people remained hospitalized Sunday, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.\nEmergency Situations Minister Boris Dzgoyev said Saturday that 35 attackers -- heavily-armed and explosive-laden men and women who were reportedly demanding independence for Chechnya -- were killed in 10 hours of battles that shook the area around the school with gunfire and explosions.\nHowever, Russian Deputy Prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky said Sunday that according to the latest information, 32 terrorists had been involved in the hostage-taking, and the bodies of 30 of them had been found, Interfax reported.\nIncluding the militants, more than 350 people died in the tragedy.\nPutin took a defiant tone in his speech, acknowledging Russia's weaknesses, but blaming it on the fall of the Soviet Union, corrupt officials and foreign foes seeking to tear apart Russia. He said Russians could no longer live "carefree" and must all confront terrorism.\nMeasures would be taken, Putin promised, to overhaul the law enforcement organs, which he acknowledged had been infected by corruption, and tighten borders.\n"We are obliged to create a much more effective security system and to demand action from our law enforcement organs that would be adequate to the level and scale of the new threats," he said.\nRussian officials said the final bloodbath began when explosions were apparently set off by the militants -- possibly by accident -- as emergency workers entered the school courtyard to collect the bodies of hostages killed in the initial raid Wednesday.\nHostages fled during the blasts, and the militants opened fire on them, prompting security forces to open fire and commandos to move in, officials said.\nThe explosions tore through the roof of the gymnasium, sending wreckage down on hostages, killing many. Many survivors emerged naked covered in ashes and soot, their feet bloody from jumping barefoot out of broken windows to escape.
(09/02/04 5:12am)
JERUSALEM -- Israel holds Syria responsible for a double suicide bombing that killed 16 people, a senior Israeli official said Wednesday in a warning that implied possible retaliation.\nThe militant Islamic group Hamas claimed the attack Tuesday in the desert city of Beersheba, when two bombers from the West Bank city of Hebron blew themselves up seconds apart in two buses.\nRaanan Gissin, a senior aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, pointed to neighboring Syria Wednesday, saying Hamas leaders are permitted to work out of the Syrian capital, Damascus.\n"The fact that Hamas is operating from Syria will not grant it immunity," Gissin told The Associated Press. Last year Israel attacked targets in Syria after a Palestinian bombing.\nIsraeli security sources said earlier that Sharon and his military commanders had decided to stage more strikes to eliminate militant Palestinian leaders in response to the bus attack.\nThe twin bombings in Beersheba shattered hopes in Israel that the period of suicide attacks -- more than 100 in four years -- was over. "The nightmare is back," the newspaper Yediot Ahronot said Wednesday in its main headline above a photo of a burning bus.\nThe last suicide attack was in March, and many Israelis believed the militants had been defeated, or at least suffered a serious blow.\nIsraeli leaders had boasted of increasingly effective means in fighting bombers, including a large network of Palestinian informers, mass arrests and an expanding barrier to separate Israel from the West Bank. Sharon pledged Wednesday to speed up construction of the barrier.\nTuesday's bombers came from the West Bank city of Hebron, about 15 miles north of Beersheba. Ahmed Kawasmeh, 26, and Nassim Jabari, 22, had known each other for years and were members of a secretive Hamas cell led by Kawasmeh's cousin, Imad, a top fugitive.\nThe Kawasmeh clan is one of the largest in Hebron and had dispatched five suicide bombers in recent years. Israeli troops destroyed Ahmed Kawasmeh's family apartment, arrested three of his brothers and sealed off Hebron.\nSharon consulted with his defense minister and army commanders late Tuesday and decided to step up military raids in Hebron, including targeted killings of militant leaders, security sources said. No large-scale military operation was planned, the sources said.\nSharon also said he is determined to go ahead with a planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements next year. "(The attack) has no connection to disengagement," he said, referring to his program.\nIsraelis have pointed to the barrier as the main factor in the drop-off of attacks in Israel, and residents of Beersheba, a normally quiet city of 200,000 people in the Negev Desert, clamored for completion of the barrier around the West Bank's southern end to protect them.\nSpeaking to reporters Wednesday after a meeting with Israel's president, Sharon pledged to act. "The fence will be completed according to the Cabinet decision, and we are doing all we can to speed up the process as much as possible," he said.\nThe barrier has been widely condemned internationally because of the hardships it causes for Palestinians. Completion has been held up by Israel's own Supreme Court, which ordered route changes to ease conditions of the Palestinians.\nThe bombs went off just seconds apart on the No. 6 and No. 12 buses, on opposite sides of a busy intersection Tuesday afternoon. The buses lay stricken in the street, their windows blown out, roofs buckled outward, interiors gutted by flames. Forensic workers picked up body parts, including a woman's severed hand with a silver ring.\nNissim Vaknin, a passenger on the No. 6 bus, said he was sitting behind the driver, next to a man he later realized was the bomber. Vaknin described the bomber as a "young guy, quiet, not tense." When an elderly woman with shopping bags boarded, Vaknin gave up his seat to her and walked to the back, a gesture that saved his life.\nThe elderly woman was killed in the blast several seconds later. Vaknin said he was plagued by guilt. "If it weren't for me, she'd still be alive today," he told Israel Army Radio.\nA 3-year-old boy was also among the victims. More than 80 people were wounded, including 19 school-age children.\nHamas said the attack was retaliation for Israel's assassination of Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, earlier this year.\nIn Gaza, thousands of Hamas supporters celebrated in the streets, with Rantisi's widow, Rasha, calling the attack "heroic" and saying her husband's soul was "happy in heaven." She threw candies to the cheering crowd around her house.\nPalestinian leader Yasser Arafat said in a statement that "the Palestinian interest requires a stop to harming all civilians so as not to give Israel pretext to continue its aggression against our people."\nThe U.S. State Department brushed aside Arafat's comments and said Hamas must be put out of business.\nThe delayed Hamas response -- Yassin was killed in March and Rantisi in April -- was a sign of the group's increasing difficulties in carrying out attacks.\nAlong with the partially completed barrier, the military said it had foiled dozens of suicide bomb plots, arrested hundreds of terror suspects and crippled the Hamas leadership with assassinations of Yassin and Rantisi.\nPalestinian analyst Hani al-Masri agreed. "But now, the military operations (attacks) are a way for Hamas to increase its popularity among Palestinians," he said.\nTuesday's attack was the deadliest since a female suicide bomber killed 21 people on Oct. 4, 2003, in the northern city of Haifa.\nThe last suicide bombing in Israel was March 14, when two Palestinian attackers killed 11 Israelis in the southern port of Ashdod. Since then, 338 Palestinians, including militants and civilians, have been killed by Israeli troops. In the same period, 29 Israelis were killed, including soldiers who died in attacks in Gaza and Israeli motorists shot by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
(09/01/04 6:03am)
BEERSHEBA, Israel -- Palestinian suicide bombers blew up two buses in this Israeli desert city Tuesday, killing 16 passengers and wounding more than 80 in the deadliest attack in nearly a year.\nThe blasts ended a six-month lull in violence that Israel had attributed to its separation barrier, arrest sweeps and widespread network of informers.\nThe buses exploded into flames just seconds apart and about 100 yards away from each other near a busy intersection in the center of Beersheba.\nThe Hamas militant group claimed responsibility, issuing a leaflet in Hebron, Israel, in the West Bank -- the closest Palestinian city to Beersheba -- saying it was avenging Israel's assassinations of two of its leaders earlier this year.\nIsraeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with his security advisers to plan a response, expected to include a military operation in Hebron. Just hours before the attack, Sharon presented his hardline Likud Party with the most detailed timetable yet for Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.\nDespite the bombings, Sharon promised to push forward with the Gaza pullout, while insisting Israel would keep fighting terrorism "with all its might."\n"(The attack) has no connection to disengagement," he said, referring to his program to separate Israel from the Palestinians.\nIsraeli officials said the bombings proved the need for the barrier now under construction between Israel and the West Bank. The section between Hebron and Beersheba has not been built.\n"We should go ahead speedily now and finish construction of this fence," government spokesman Avi Pazner told The Associated Press.\nThe barrier, which Israel says is necessary to keep out suicide bombers, has been widely condemned internationally because of the hardships it imposes on Palestinians.\nPalestinian analyst Hani al-Masri agreed with the Israeli assessment of the lull in suicide attacks. He told The Associated Press that it resulted from Israel's assassination of Hamas leaders and the difficulties of infiltrating posed by the barrier.\n"But now, the military operations (attacks) are a way for Hamas to increase its popularity among Palestinians," he said, noting that until Tuesday, the Islamic group had not carried out its promise to avenge Israel's killing of its founder and his successor.\nIt had been nearly six months since Israelis last experienced the scene of charred buses, mangled bodies and screaming sirens that played out in Beersheba on Tuesday. The last suicide bombing in Israel took place on March 14, when 11 people were killed at the port of Ashdod.\nTuesday's attack was the deadliest since a female suicide bomber killed 21 people nearly a year ago in the northern city of Haifa, Israel -- an attack that prompted Israel to assassinate Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi.\nIsrael's rescue service said 30 of the wounded in Tuesday's attack were in serious condition. Police said the death toll of 16 did not include the bombers.\nThe two buses lay smoldering in the street, their windows blown out, roofs buckled outward, interiors gutted by flames. Forensic workers picked up body parts, including a woman's hand with a silver ring still attached.\nOne of the bus drivers, Yaakov Cohen, opened his doors and ordered passengers off after hearing the first blast, apparently saving a number of lives.\n"I don't know why I thought to open the doors," Cohen told reporters, still dazed, "but at least some of the people were able to escape."\nIn Hebron, the Israeli army surrounded the homes of the two suspected bombers, Ahmed Qawasmeh and Nasim Jaabari, and questioned their relatives.\nIn Gaza, thousands of Hamas supports took to the streets to celebrate, with Rantisi's widow, Rasha, calling the attack an "heroic operation" and saying her husband's soul is "happy in heaven."\nPalestinian officials condemned the attack, however, and called for an immediate cease-fire and resumption of peace talks.\n"The Palestinian interest requires a stop to harming all civilians so as not give Israel pretext to continue its aggression against our people," Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said in a statement.\nIn Washington, the State Department brushed aside Arafat's comments and said Hamas must be put out of business. Department spokesman Richard Boucher said action, not words, was needed.\nSecretary of State Colin Powell condemned the bombings in a telephone call to Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.\nIn a development clearly related to the bombings, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman canceled a visit to the West Bank, set for Wednesday. Suleiman has been leading a yearlong Egyptian effort to negotiate an end to Palestinian attacks.\nThe past year has seen a sharp reduction in the number of bombings in Israel -- from 18 in 2003 that killed 167 civilians to four this year that killed 42, including Tuesday's toll.\nIsrael has attributed the slowdown to its success in fighting militants and the West Bank barrier, not to a lack of effort by armed Palestinian groups.\nIsrael has arrested or killed dozens of militants in recent months, maintains dozens of roadblocks in the West Bank and placed security guards near busy bus stops in Israeli cities. It also operates an efficient intelligence network in the Palestinian areas.\nBut Israeli officials Tuesday repeatedly cited the barrier, which the world court at The Hague, Netherlands, recently ruled to be illegal, as the No. 1 reason for the lull in violence.\n"What we have learned in the past six months ... is that in the place where there is a fence there is no terror, and where there is no fence there is terror," said Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi.\nSeveral Israeli officials have privately complained that the barrier project has been unnecessarily politicized, saying Israel should have built it closer to the country's pre-1967 frontier. That, they say, would have saved lives by heading off legal challenges that have repeatedly delayed construction of the 425-mile structure.
(08/26/04 3:48am)
BUCHALKI, Russia -- Russian emergency workers searched heaps of twisted metal and tall grass Wednesday for clues about what caused two airliners to plunge to earth within minutes of each other, killing all 89 people aboard. Officials said one jet sent a hijack distress signal.\nFlight recorders from both planes were found and taken to Moscow for investigation, ITAR-TASS, a Russian news agency, reported, indicating the question of what caused the twin disasters soon could be answered.\nRussian security authorities said explosives specialists were still working at the scene of the crashes. They reported that terrorism remained a possible cause, although there was no evidence so far that terrorists were behind the tragedies.\nFederal Security Service spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko said investigators were still questioning airport officials and airline and security employees at Domodedovo Airport, from where both flights left 45 minutes apart.\nFormer National Transportation Safety Board vice chairman Bob Francis said coincidence was always possible but seemed highly unlikely.\n"There are obviously things that can lead to accidents. ... The likelihood that you can have things lead to two accidents ... at the same time ... that's a pretty heavy coincidence," said Francis, who was involved in investigating the 1996 crash of TWA flight 800 off the Long Island coast.\nThe former director of security of the Israeli Airport Authority said the time of the crashes suggested terrorism.\n"The timing indicates that this is probably a coordinated attack," Rafi Ron told The Associated Press. "There was probably something on board that led the pilots to push the distress signal or submit a verbal signal. In my assumption, that must have been the result of a terrorist being on board."\nNeither Francis nor Ron had independent information about the crashes.\nThe airport on Moscow's far south side operates a single terminal that serves both international and domestic flights. Both flights were serviced at and left from the domestic section.\nThe service, known as the FSB, is a successor agency to the KGB. Officials there said they were investigating other possibilities such as technical failures, the use of poor quality fuel, breaches of fueling regulations and pilot error. Rain and thunder was reported in the regions where both crashes occurred.\nRebels fighting a protracted war for independence for Chechnya, the troubled southern Russian province, have been blamed for a series of terror strikes that have claimed hundreds of lives in Russia in recent years. Rebel representative Akhmed Zakayev told Russia's Radio EKHO Moskvy from London that Chechen forces and rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov were not connected to the crashes.\nRussian officials claim the Chechen rebels have al Qaeda connections.\nRussian officials had expressed concern that separatists in the war-ravaged republic might carry out attacks ahead of a regional election Sunday to replace its pro-Moscow president who was killed in a May bombing.\nA Sibir Airlines Tu-154 jet, carrying 46 people, took off from Moscow's newly redeveloped Domodedovo Airport at 9:35 p.m. Tuesday, and the other plane, a Tu-134 carrying 43 people, left 40 minutes later, according to state-run Rossiya television. The Tu-134 was headed to the southern city of Volgograd, while the other plane was flying to the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, where President Vladimir Putin is vacationing.\nPutin returned to Moscow Wednesday evening and met with chief prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov, who told him authorities were considering terrorism, technical problems or human error as possible causes of the crashes. Putin announced that Thursday would be a day of mourning, the Interfax news agency reported.\nThe planes disappeared from radar screens about 11 p.m., and by early Wednesday morning, the wreckage of both had been found. Domodedovo Airport said in a statement that both planes "went through the standard procedure of preparation for flight ... (and) the procedures were carried out properly."\nUncertainty over the cause of the crashes came after Sibir (which means Siberia) said that it was notified that its jet had activated a hijack or seizure signal shortly before disappearing from radar screens. Officials said the crew of the other plane gave no indication that anything was wrong, but witnesses on the ground reported hearing a series of explosions.\n"There were three loud bangs on the window, like someone knocking," said Nikolai Gorokhov, a local resident who was in his home at the time of the crash.\nPutin ordered an investigation by the FSB, and security was tightened at Russian airports, where extra security officers and sniffer dogs were called in to check passengers and luggage, as well as other transport hubs and public places. The FSB sent experts to determine if explosions caused the crashes, Interfax reported.\nAt about the same time the Tu-154 disappeared, the Tu-134 airliner crashed in the Tula region, about 125 miles south of Moscow, officials said. ITAR-TASS reported that the authorities believe the Tu-134 fell from an altitude of 32,800 feet. Wreckage of the Sochi-bound Tu-154 was found in the Rostov region, about 600 miles south of Moscow about nine hours after it disappeared.\nRescuers quickly found the Tu-134's wreckage. An AP reporter saw one body bag lying near the tail, holding a charred corpse. Emergency Ministry officers wearing camouflage and red berets stood shoulder-to-shoulder and combed the tall grass for pieces of the broken plane.\nMaj. Gen. Gennady Skachkov of the Emergency Situations Ministry told AP at the scene near the village of Buchalki that most of the bodies were still in the cabin, but several had been thrown into the field. He refused to speculate on the cause of the crash but said the crew had given no warning.\nOfficials made conflicting statements about whether the signal from the other jet indicated a hijacking or another severe problem on the aircraft.\nThe Interfax and ITAR-TASS news agencies later quoted an unnamed law enforcement source as saying that the signal was an SOS and that no other signals were sent.\nOleg Yermolov, deputy director of the Interstate Aviation Committee, said that it is impossible to judge what is behind the signal, which merely indicates "a dangerous situation onboard" and can be triggered by the crew during a hijacking or a potentially catastrophic technical problem.\nSibir Airlines seemed to hint at foul play, saying on its Web site that it "does not rule out the theory of a terrorist attack." The airline is one of Russia's largest.\nThe Situation Ministry's Rostov regional chief Viktor Shkareda told AP the plane apparently broke up in the air and wreckage was spread over an area of some 25-30 miles, but the fuselage and tail lay a few hundred yards apart at the edge of a forest. Bodies lay near the plane, but most of the victims' bodies were trapped in the mangled fuselage. The crash was found near Gluboky, a village north of the regional capital Rostov-on-Don.\nSiber said the Tu-134 belonged to small regional airline Volga-Aviaexpress and was being piloted by the company's director.\nInterfax quoted a Domodedovo Airport spokesman as saying no foreigners were on the passenger lists for either plane. A spokesman for the Israeli embassy said an Israeli citizen, David Coen, was on the Volgograd-bound jet.
(07/08/04 4:00am)
There are two things that a majority of film critics have failed to acknowledge about "Fahrenheit 9/11." One: that no work of art exists in a vacuum. Two: that a documentary is not a panoramic view of fact. Loyalists to Michael Moore's cause, and rebels against it, both hide behind the very form of film in order to promote political convictions. But this fault is trapped in the impossibility of viewing "Fahrenheit" simply as a film in its initial release.\n The critical reaction to "Fahrenheit" has pussyfooted around the idea that the film is primarily aimed at a political audience that is willing to accept Moore's ideas without question. Moviegoers pretty much know whether or not they'll like the film before they even walk in the theater. Is that a fault? No, it's politics. Rush Limbaugh has his ditto-heads, and Moore has his. In such a politically polarized time, the film's intended goal of information and entertainment has been sidelined, and has become a source of ideological reinforcement.\n The movie's biggest critical supporters use the film to show their political agenda while simultaneously trying to mask themselves behind a veil of critic-speak, selling the movie simply as "a brilliant film." Only a handful acknowledge their own personal politics influencing their decision as Roger Ebert does in his review: "opinions are my stock in trade, and is it not more honest to declare my politics than to conceal them?" The movie's biggest critical enemies claim the film is not a documentary, rather propaganda or fiction; that Michael Moore unfairly takes one side, strings together unrelated facts and uses the piece to promote an agenda.\n Every film carries with it the cultural beliefs of those who make it, and those who view it can reject or accept its philosophical conclusions. To deny that, is to define the art of filmmaking as a simple, technical exercise. The very beauty of film's form comes from its ability to blend image, sound and idea into a tangible creation that elicits intangible reaction.\n The truth is that documentaries and traditional fictitious narrative films are not as far away from each other as we'd like to believe. They both have character and story arcs, beginnings, ends and most importantly, they are both controlled by purpose.\n "The Shawshank Redemption" doesn't attempt to explore the warden's reasons to keep Andy Dufresne in jail when he knows he is innocent. Why should it? It has no business with the antagonist, because that's not its purpose. Likewise, Moore has no reasons to side with Bush because he has no desire to. Moore's dogmatic documentaries are unfairly lumped together with the public's generic idea that documentaries are only nature shows and the History Channel retrospectives, a tragic by-product of perceived generic constraint that serves to overlook the fact that, by Moore's own admission, "Fahrenheit" is an op-ed piece.\n The filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard said, "The cinema is truth at 24 frames a second, and every cut is a lie." Just like a narrative film, a documentary chooses what is and what isn't shown in order to reach its own climax, which sometimes is not an event, but a conclusion. Moore's linking of seemingly unrelated facts is not a gimmick or a lie; it is the basis of editorializing. It is not the aforementioned panoramic view of fact, rather a strategically placed window of perception. He cannot be faulted for the conclusions his film lends to his absolute ideology, but he can be faulted for his views that lead to it.\n Anyone crafting an editorial response has one responsibility: to engage the facts; to take what they know and what they believe and synthesize them into a forward idea. There are those who will question the integrity of the editorialist, and there are those will praise him.\n Regardless, both bring a lifetime of political and social upbringing to the table that creates a formula for successful persuasion. Along with other Moore supporters, I cannot deny that I believe "Fahrenheit" to be an amazing expression of craft. Like "Triumph of the Will," I want to believe that it is a documentary whose formal elements are undeniably precise and can exist independently from its principles.\nBut I can't.\n My views and emotions are so far invested in Moore's journey that I cannot distance myself from his destination. But the other side is invested in this just as well … so much so that neither of us flinch at a moment of conflict. Moore's supporters and detractors cannot hide behind the very form of film in order to coyly push their agenda. It's impossible. Moore's opponents see the film as propaganda, and they're right. It is. But as one who sides with Moore, I have no problem with that, which further proves their point.\n "Fahrenheit," like "The Passion of the Christ" or "JFK," is a film hindered by the slow passage of time. Any film shrouded in political controversy cannot elicit a pure reaction upon initial release, because it sadly carries with it the weight of society's dependence on arguing its purpose. To judge "Fahrenheit 9/11" as simply a film can only come with time, when its agenda and hype cools. It could take four, eight or even 12 years … maybe more. Then and only then, will it be "just a movie."\nAnd to think … all of this from the guy who made "Canadian Bacon"
(07/08/04 2:27am)
There are two things that a majority of film critics have failed to acknowledge about "Fahrenheit 9/11." One: that no work of art exists in a vacuum. Two: that a documentary is not a panoramic view of fact. Loyalists to Michael Moore's cause, and rebels against it, both hide behind the very form of film in order to promote political convictions. But this fault is trapped in the impossibility of viewing "Fahrenheit" simply as a film in its initial release.\n The critical reaction to "Fahrenheit" has pussyfooted around the idea that the film is primarily aimed at a political audience that is willing to accept Moore's ideas without question. Moviegoers pretty much know whether or not they'll like the film before they even walk in the theater. Is that a fault? No, it's politics. Rush Limbaugh has his ditto-heads, and Moore has his. In such a politically polarized time, the film's intended goal of information and entertainment has been sidelined, and has become a source of ideological reinforcement.\n The movie's biggest critical supporters use the film to show their political agenda while simultaneously trying to mask themselves behind a veil of critic-speak, selling the movie simply as "a brilliant film." Only a handful acknowledge their own personal politics influencing their decision as Roger Ebert does in his review: "opinions are my stock in trade, and is it not more honest to declare my politics than to conceal them?" The movie's biggest critical enemies claim the film is not a documentary, rather propaganda or fiction; that Michael Moore unfairly takes one side, strings together unrelated facts and uses the piece to promote an agenda.\n Every film carries with it the cultural beliefs of those who make it, and those who view it can reject or accept its philosophical conclusions. To deny that, is to define the art of filmmaking as a simple, technical exercise. The very beauty of film's form comes from its ability to blend image, sound and idea into a tangible creation that elicits intangible reaction.\n The truth is that documentaries and traditional fictitious narrative films are not as far away from each other as we'd like to believe. They both have character and story arcs, beginnings, ends and most importantly, they are both controlled by purpose.\n "The Shawshank Redemption" doesn't attempt to explore the warden's reasons to keep Andy Dufresne in jail when he knows he is innocent. Why should it? It has no business with the antagonist, because that's not its purpose. Likewise, Moore has no reasons to side with Bush because he has no desire to. Moore's dogmatic documentaries are unfairly lumped together with the public's generic idea that documentaries are only nature shows and the History Channel retrospectives, a tragic by-product of perceived generic constraint that serves to overlook the fact that, by Moore's own admission, "Fahrenheit" is an op-ed piece.\n The filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard said, "The cinema is truth at 24 frames a second, and every cut is a lie." Just like a narrative film, a documentary chooses what is and what isn't shown in order to reach its own climax, which sometimes is not an event, but a conclusion. Moore's linking of seemingly unrelated facts is not a gimmick or a lie; it is the basis of editorializing. It is not the aforementioned panoramic view of fact, rather a strategically placed window of perception. He cannot be faulted for the conclusions his film lends to his absolute ideology, but he can be faulted for his views that lead to it.\n Anyone crafting an editorial response has one responsibility: to engage the facts; to take what they know and what they believe and synthesize them into a forward idea. There are those who will question the integrity of the editorialist, and there are those will praise him.\n Regardless, both bring a lifetime of political and social upbringing to the table that creates a formula for successful persuasion. Along with other Moore supporters, I cannot deny that I believe "Fahrenheit" to be an amazing expression of craft. Like "Triumph of the Will," I want to believe that it is a documentary whose formal elements are undeniably precise and can exist independently from its principles.\nBut I can't.\n My views and emotions are so far invested in Moore's journey that I cannot distance myself from his destination. But the other side is invested in this just as well … so much so that neither of us flinch at a moment of conflict. Moore's supporters and detractors cannot hide behind the very form of film in order to coyly push their agenda. It's impossible. Moore's opponents see the film as propaganda, and they're right. It is. But as one who sides with Moore, I have no problem with that, which further proves their point.\n "Fahrenheit," like "The Passion of the Christ" or "JFK," is a film hindered by the slow passage of time. Any film shrouded in political controversy cannot elicit a pure reaction upon initial release, because it sadly carries with it the weight of society's dependence on arguing its purpose. To judge "Fahrenheit 9/11" as simply a film can only come with time, when its agenda and hype cools. It could take four, eight or even 12 years … maybe more. Then and only then, will it be "just a movie."\nAnd to think … all of this from the guy who made "Canadian Bacon"
(04/28/04 4:30am)
I'll remember spending my first night in Forest-B11 sleeping on top of my covers, watching a kid down an entire fifth of 151 at my first college party, jumping in the air after being cast in "Boy In the Bubble," dancing to the Chili Peppers' "Airplane" and kissing on the grassy hill at Ninth and Fess, running down Fee Lane and ending up at President Brand's house to watch effigies burned in front of the riot police, standing in Dunn Meadow to watch Bob Knight tearfully wave goodbye, being wowed by Dr. Fred McElroy in my African-American literature class, watching my roommate come home drunk, pour beer on my TV and wrestle the other Phil across the hall, getting trashed and screaming the lyrics to AC\DC's "Thunderstruck" during the almost-weekly "Forest Fiestas," coming home at 3 a.m. and watching the snow fall from my 11th-floor window, spending spring break in Daytona, "Sandstorm" and becoming desensitized to the sight of breasts, hearing O.A.R. and Shaggy every day of freshman year, seeing U2, Coldplay, Oasis and Radiohead all in one summer …\nI'll remember getting high for the first time, watching "101 Dalmatians" and eating a block of cheese, dressing up as the Beastie Boys from the "Sabotage" video for Halloween, walking around campus Sept. 11 in total awe, my first relationship (at 20!), going on a spring break cruise, smoking Cuban cigars, frequenting nude beaches and hearing the worst\best\most bizarre pick-up line ever ("show me some pink"), listening to Andy Hollinden talk about music in rock class, the Chicago Bears' best season since '85, sitting in a living room on Jefferson with 30 people watching the IU basketball team upset Duke, A.J. Moye, running to Kirkwood after making it to the National Championship to see people hanging from streetlights …\nI'll remember celebrating my 21st birthday at Sports, dancing to a band playing a roaring version of "Let's Get It On," and experiencing the Vid and its now extinct bathroom graffiti ("Sting cannot possibly be the same guy from the police!"), any class with Professor Robert Terrill, asking a girl out after finding her school ID (and succeeding … lasted four months, actually), partying at the Villas, driving to Purdue to party with my friends from home at Sigma Chi and B9, getting an A for my movie about urine for Jon Kraszewski's production as criticism class, spending St. Patrick's Day at an Irish bar in Boston, talking to an Irish guy named Dennis about music and life for the whole night, drinking scorpion bowls at a Chinese restaurant at 1 a.m., sitting in total darkness in Glen Gass' Beatles class and listening to a "Day in the Life"…\nI'll remember throwing my first house party, getting on top of the bar and leading everyone in a scream-along of DJ Kool's "Let Me Clear My Throat," throwing a schoolgirls/schoolboys party, dressing up as Optimus Prime for a Ninjas/Pirates/Robots party, "Hey Ya!," "Summer of '69," JP making me a better writer, Matt making me a better comedian, St. Patrick's Day in Costa Maya, human sexuality class, the Cubs coming so close, realizing I talk to the police really well, my neighbors banging pots and pans at 4 a.m., "I love you" on my roof…\nI'll remember the fall in Bloomington, that feeling of being back and free, the student section at IU basketball games, being on stage and making a room full of people laugh so hard they cry, Tom from TD's CDs and LPs, pointlessly arguing about movies and music, the people I met at parties and never saw again …\nI'll remember not having enough time …\nI'll remember leaving not knowing where I'm going -- only knowing where I've been … the place that brought me four years closer to discovering who I really am.
(04/23/04 6:17am)
For the Indiana Public Interest Research Group, Thursday's rain may have affected the turn out for the Earth Day celebration in Dunn Meadow. But the rain did not dampen the spirits of many INPIRG volunteers, who continued to celebrate the event while educating passers-by about this year's list of environmental issues. \nWorking out of INPIRG's fourth floor office in the Indiana Memorial Union, seniors Melanie Thomas and Jen Foster finished last-minute posters using the natural sunlight beaming through the office windows. \n"We've been planning this for a month-and-a-half," Thomas said. \nAfter a series of tabling sessions and volunteer recruitment, Thomas and Foster hauled a month's worth of decorations out to a damp Dunn Meadow. Bright letters of acrylic paint read: "In case you're wondering, we are not hypocrites. Our signs are made out of re-used materials."\nThe Forest Alliances and Student Environment Action Coalition paraded from the Monroe County Courthouse to Dunn Meadow at about 11 a.m. to kick off the event. \n"That was really kind of the success of the day," said Kate Mobley, entertainment coordinator and junior INPIRG volunteer.\nMobley said because of the rain, the Earth Day celebration faced problems with attendance and scheduled sponsors. Junior INPIRG volunteer Ben James said sponsors like the Sahara Mart left early due to lack of attendees.\n"Our sound guy pulled out, too," said Lauren Fischer, senior coordinator and INPIRG volunteer. \nScheduled bands like the Undefeatable Beats also reneged. \n"I've been calling all my friends who play acoustic instruments to come out and play," Fischer said.\nDespite the change in plans, senior Sarah Graub serenaded onlookers spread out on blankets with melodic tunes from her acoustic guitar, singing: "Live our dream/ Our future's not in electricity." \nVolunteer Mike Englert also successfully led a group of five students in a tree-planting campaign around Bloomington's Sycamore Land Trust. Together, the students managed to plant about 40 new trees. \n"This is the 34th anniversary of a national holiday," Fischer said. \nThough INPIRG has always promoted Earth Day, she said this is the first year they have sponsored an event. Fischer said she hopes this will be the beginning of an annual celebration. \n"There's lots of things happening right now," Thomas said. \nThis year's environmental issues have included mercury poisoning in Indiana waters and the controversial construction of the I-69 Interstate highway. Concerning campus issues, Thomas referenced INPIRG's year-long campaign to enforce double-sided printing in campus computer labs. \nThe turnout also included graduate students from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Graduate students Blake Weathers, Taylor Aldridge and Wendy Freeman came in hopes of setting up a table for SPEA, but the rain was too heavy.\nGraub ended her live performance in ode to the downpour, asking people not to be discouraged by the gloomy weather. \n"Thanks so much, and thanks to the rain," she said. "Remember, it's what makes the world grow."\n-- Contact staff writer Amber Kerezman at akerezma@indiana.edu.
(04/22/04 4:36am)
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- A suicide bomber attacked a security police building in the Saudi capital Wednesday, killing at least four other people and wounding 148, just days after the United States warned of a terrorist attack.\nFacades were torn off buildings revealing rooms still ablaze. Cars parked nearby were smashed by debris. Clouds of dust and black smoke rose from the seven-story building and settled over the neighborhood.\nA U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the attack had the hallmarks of al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden's terror group has used car bombs to carry out previous attacks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.\nA Saudi Interior Ministry statement said attackers tried to drive one vehicle into the General Security building, which housed the headquarters of Riyadh's traffic department in addition to some security police officials.\nThe driver exploded the car 100 feet from the gate, the Interior Ministry official said.\nThe Interior Ministry put the death toll at four: two police officers, an adult and an 11-year-old Syrian girl. The ministry statement did not include the suicide bomber, whose death was reported to The Associated Press by a security official.\nEarlier, officials from the three hospitals said nine people were killed.\nThe ministry statement said 148 people were wounded, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.\nA Saudi official told The Associated Press Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal about 30 minutes after the attack. The meeting was at the Foreign Ministry, which is close to the damaged General Security building in al-Nassiriyah, a central Riyadh neighborhood.\nSaudi Crown Prince Abdullah visited the wounded, one of them a young man who was unconscious and on a respirator. The prince stopped at the bedside of another young man who appeared alert and had no obvious injuries. A third wounded man wore camouflage.\n"Your duty is our pride. God will help us to defeat these people," Abdullah told one of the injured.\nThe General Security building, the administrative headquarters of the Saudi domestic security service, was severely damaged as were a number of homes in the neighborhood.\nGeneral Security oversees officers who investigate burglaries and murders, direct traffic and perform other basic police duties in the kingdom. Such officers have been on the front lines in a Saudi crackdown on Islamic militants, manning checkpoints as part of stepped-up security and occasionally engaging in fire fights with suspects.\nLast month, a purported al Qaeda message appeared on the Internet threatening Saudi police, members of the intelligence forces and other security agents. The message said targeting Saudi security agents "in their homes or workplace is a very easy matter."\nThe explosion, which occurred at about 2 p.m., hit when workers would have been leaving for the Saudi weekend.\nSaudi TV showed the General Security building, about seven floors, with its glass facade shattered and severe damage inside. Firefighters worked to extinguish the blazes, and more than 20 ambulances had arrived. Two helicopters flew above the site. Police blocked the area and evacuated the surrounding buildings.\nHanan Batteesha, an Egyptian woman, was with her two children, ages 11 and 14, when she heard a "big blast."\n"We heard wails and cries, then saw our neighbors running down the stairs," she said.\nBy the time they reached the ground floor, "the gate was damaged, windows started shattering and glass fell all over us," she said. "The fronts of the buildings around us were damaged, the air conditioners mangled and there was smoke everywhere."\nThe blast was heard and felt more than three miles away.\nIn an interview with the Saudi TV station Al-Ekhbaria, a leading Saudi cleric called the bombing "a dastardly criminal act."\n"How can they make these dastardly acts bring them closer to God?" Sheik Abdullah Al-Mutlaq said, apparently alluding to Islamic militants who are blamed for terrorist strikes in the kingdom.\nThe explosion came only days after Saudi authorities announced they had seized three booby-trapped SUVs loaded with a total of more than four tons of explosives that had apparently been abandoned by militants involved in a shootout with security forces.
(04/20/04 2:31am)
A man jumped off the eighth floor of Ballantine Hall Monday around 11:40 a.m.\nIU Police Department Lt. Jerry Minger said the man is still alive. Minger said, although he could not confirm, that the man is a student, though he may not be enlisted in classes this semester. \nAn IUPD Officer at the scene said he thought the man broke a glass window with a chair and jumped off, landing on the awning above the front entrance to the building. \nCheck back at www.idsnews.com for updates or see tomorrow's paper.
(04/16/04 5:16am)
The United Presbyterian Church will look like a nursery center Saturday as students and community members are encouraged to "shower" the location with diapers, baby formula, pacifiers, toys and other essential baby items.\nCircle K, an IU community service club with the mission to serve Bloomington through various programs and activities, will host the "community baby shower" from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the United Presbyterian Church, 1701 E. Second St. The baby items will eventually be given to Healthy Families, a national organization that provides support for parents.\nCircle K is a club found at 14 college campuses in Indiana. At IU, the 30 student members hold weekly meetings at 8 p.m. Tuesday nights in the Psychology Building. \n"Circle K provides the opportunity to get to know the community of Bloomington," said sophomore Elizabeth Ralph, vice president of IU's Circle K. "I know so much about this town because I've been out serving in the community."\nMembers pay $32 in dues each year, though students are not required to pay the dues to participate in the service activities. Nine students serve on the club board, which organizes projects ranging from food and clothing drives to a talent show at a local nursing home.\n"It's especially great for freshman to get out off campus and do something besides stare out their dorm room window," Ralph said. "Circle K has really helped me to make Bloomington my second home."\nSaturday's community baby shower is part of a series of projects this year called "Protecting Our Future, The Children of Indiana," created by Indiana Circle K Governor, senior Melissa Schmidt. Delegates from each Circle K chapter in the state elected Schmidt to the position of governor last spring. Her term of service ended March 31.\n"For the community baby shower to be a success in my book, it will raise awareness of Healthy Families' mission and leave the agency with additional resources with which to provide families," Schmidt said.\nOther Circle K chapters, including Ball State, Butler and the University of Indianapolis, have held community baby showers to benefit various shelters and organizations in their own communities. \n"This event is important because it helps us be able to give out resources to the families we serve. It's especially nice that the donated items will be new," said Vicky Sorensen, program manager at Monroe County's Healthy Families. "It's thrilling for a parent to get a new outfit for their child." \nHealthy Families provides free services to families that are expecting a child, ranging from providing the families with information, connecting them to needed resources and support, teaching them positive parenting skills or providing developmental screening for their children. Any family, regardless of income, wishing to partake of these resources is free to do so until their child reaches the age of five.\nIndiana is one of just a few states with a Healthy Families site in each county. In Monroe County, Healthy Families' 15 staff members currently serve 134 families.\n"We're looking forward to the shower on Saturday," Sorensen said. "We'll be happy with whatever turnout we get."\n-- Contact staff writer Jennifer Gunnels at jgunnels@indiana.edu.
(04/07/04 12:53am)
Be it the croak of a frog or the twill of a toad, it's hard to drive anywhere with the car windows down nowadays without hearing the call of some amphibious creature.\nBloomington Parks and Recreation is sponsoring "Frogs and Dogs," a nature program offering participants a chance to identify frogs by sound and sight as well as try to catch some on their own April 16 and 17.\n"But best of all," said naturalist instructor Skitz Evrard, who is leading the program for the second year in a row, "we're going to roast hotdogs over an open fire and have a treat a frog would love for dessert."\nEvrard has many activities planned so far to help participants learn about frogs and get to know what's going on in the world around them. She plans to bring 35 mm picture slides and recordings of frog sounds. She also plans to bring live frogs and toads as well as their eggs. There will be an exploration time when participants will use the nets provided to try to catch frogs in the stream at Lower Cascades Park. \nEvrard said during this time of year, frogs are really concentrated around wetlands for their mating season. They need to lay their eggs before the pools of spring rain dry up.\n"It's spring fever for amphibians right now," she said.\nIn Indiana, about six to seven species of frogs call and two species of toads call, Evrard said. "Calling" is the name for the noises they produce from a vocal sac under their mouth that acts as a huge chamber for acoustics.\n"You can hear it for up to a mile," Evrard said.\nShe said male frogs call for four reasons: to establish territory, to attract females for mating, to warn others or free themselves from predators or to let other frogs know they don't want to mate with them. \nVicky Meretsky, an associate professor of conservation biology at IU, is currently working with students who are monitoring frog populations at two nearby wetland areas. She said bullfrogs, leopard frogs and spring peepers are the most common types of frogs in Indiana. Most breed between late March and June, she said, so during that time, there is always some kind of frogs calling. The sounds have many connotations for different people.\n"Spring peepers are the sound of spring for many people. The evening choruses of thousands of them together sound a bit like distant silvery bells," she said. "Bullfrogs are the sound of approaching summer." \nFrogs can also be useful to humans because they provide an early warning system for environmental damage. Meretsky said due to their life history, a frog spends part of its life in the water, as an egg and tadpole, and part of its life on land. Since their skin readily absorbs chemicals, if chemicals are building up on land or in the water, they are among the first to be affected. \nBecky Barrick, the parks and recreation community events manager, said the purpose of the program is to provide both education and recreation and give participants a chance to have fun outdoors. \n"It's also a good chance to experience one of the parks in the Bloomington park system that people may never have been to before," she said. \n"Frogs and Dogs" is part of a larger series of programs called "Great Outdoors," which holds two outdoor programs a month. The next program, scheduled for April 25, is "Spring Poppers," all about wildflowers. Summer programs include night hikes, fishing programs and woods survival. \nThis year, "Frogs and Dogs" is back by popular demand. \n"We get a lot of input from residents to see what programs they want to see," Barrick said.\n"Frogs and Dogs" is being held at the north shelter in Lower Cascades Park from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. April 16 and from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. April 17. The cost of the program is $5 and pre-registration is required by April 12. \n-- Contact staff writer Hannah Schroeder at schrode@indiana.edu.
(03/29/04 6:09am)
Georgia Tech 79, Kansas 71, OT\nST. LOUIS -- When the final buzzer sounded, the entire Georgia Tech team rushed together to pile into a group hug on the floor.\nHow fitting.\nWith top-scorer B.J. Elder hobbled by a badly sprained ankle, someone else had to step up. Jarrett Jack and the rest of the Yellow Jackets did better than that, beating Kansas 79-71 in overtime Sunday to advance to their first Final Four since 1990.\n"A lot was on the line," said Jack, who scored eight of his career-high 29 points in overtime. "B.J. being out, we all knew we had to step up. I just really got it going and kept attacking until the game was over."\nNo team had more tight games on its road to the Final Four than the third-seeded Yellow Jackets. Their first three games in the St. Louis Regional were decided by a total of 13 points.\nBut Georgia Tech (27-9) has been unflappable all season, beating Connecticut when the Huskies were ranked No. 1 and winning at Duke and Wake Forest. So facing the favored Jayhawks, even without Elder, was no big deal. Even when the game went to overtime.\nAfter little Will Bynum hit a big three-pointer to break a 71-all tie, Jack went 4 for 4 from the line in the last 47 seconds to seal the win.\nJack finished 8 of 12 from the floor, and had nine rebounds and six assists. Luke Schenscher added 15 points, and Clarence Moore matched his season high with 14 for the Yellow Jackets.\nAs the final seconds ticked off the clock, coach Paul Hewitt threw his hands in the air in triumph and a wide grin spread across his face. The Yellow Jackets poured onto the court and into a pile when the buzzer sounded. Elder's teammates tried to lift him up, but they couldn't get him off the ground as the impromptu mosh pit bopped around.\nThe Yellow Jackets will now face second-seeded Oklahoma State Saturday in San Antonio.\n"A lot of basketball teams across the country are close on the court, but off the court, they go their separate ways," said Isma'il Muhammad, who took the charge in overtime that gave Keith Langford has fifth foul. "This team, we all stick together and do things together.\n"We're very close on the court and off the court, and I think that contributes to our success."\nFourth-seeded Kansas (24-9) could do little but watch the Georgia Tech lovefest with disappointment, denied a third straight trip to the Final Four.\nBut these Jayhawks didn't play like a Final Four team. They shot 40 percent from the floor and turned the ball over 15 times. Wayne Simien, who'd been averaging 20 points in the tournament, was held to 11 on 4 of 14 shooting. Langford scored 15 on 4 of 11.\nIt was the Jayhawks' first loss in a regional final since March 26, 1996, when they lost to Syracuse.\n"It's disappointing, but that's how it is," Langford said. "We knew they don't automatically put you in there. We'll go back, take care of our wounds and get ready for next year."\nThough Georgia Tech was seeded one spot better, it came into the game as an underdog. The Jayhawks had the experience and the momentum, having won their first three tournament games by 22 points.\nThey even had a domeful of fans, playing just five hours away from their campus in Lawrence, Kan.\nAs if that wasn't enough, the Yellow Jackets were playing with a gimpy Elder. Elder, who averaged a team-high 15.8 points, severely sprained an ankle in Friday night's regional.\nHe started but was limping and couldn't run close to full speed.\n"I felt in warmups that I wouldn't be able to go very long," said Elder, who played only 12 minutes and had one assist. "I did what I could. I made a couple of passes. I got a couple of rebounds. I just had to leave it up to the other guys."\nAnd they got it done.\nThe Yellow Jackets had their way with the Jayhawks early, smothering them defensively and holding Simien and Langford to a combined four points on 0 for 10 shooting. The Yellow Jackets led by as much as 11 in the first half and were up 40-33 with 16:39 left in regulation.\n"They really came with the doubles really quick most of the night," Simien said. "I felt good. It just wasn't falling for me."\nBut Simien and Langford finally broke loose, and Kansas came roaring back.\nLangford scored on a driving layup -- his first field goal of the day -- and Simien ran off five quick points to give Kansas a 43-42 lead, its first, with 13:04 to play. The pro-Kansas crowd went wild, and the Jayhawks' bench sprinted onto the floor when a timeout was called seconds later.\nJack was fouled by Aaron Miles with 39 seconds left, and he made the front end of a one-and-one to put the Yellow Jackets up 66-63. But he missed the second, and Simien grabbed the rebound.\nSimien missed a short hook at the other end, but Jeff Graves came up with the ball in the scramble and kicked it out to freshman J.R. Giddens, who calmly drilled a three-pointer to tie the game at 66 with 16 seconds left.\nThe Yellow Jackets had a chance to win it in regulation, but Lewis missed a layup and Bynum couldn't get the tip to fall.\n"We had momentum," Miles said. "It was like we had a little breath of fresh air. We had second life."\nIt didn't last. After Michael Lee scored on a layup to tie the game at 71, Bynum put Georgia Tech ahead for good by drilling a three-pointer.\nNow Georgia Tech is on its way to San Antonio, where Bynum will match up with high school teammate Tony Allen of Oklahoma State.\n"I take my hat off to Georgia Tech," Miles said. "Jarrett Jack made a lot of plays for them. Every time they needed something, boom! He was there for them."
(03/05/04 5:57am)
A gold-spotted black stin-gray lazily ripples across a stack of algae-covered rocks to 36-year-old Tom Meador's food-laden fist, which looks small, pink and vulnerable poised in the water as the ray glides closer and envelopes it. It hovers there only a moment as Meador strokes the 28-inch ray's underside and then glides away as he laughs.\n"She's not really interested in this food," he says, tossing the brown pellet food to the other fish in the small pond. "She'd rather have some frozen fish or shrimp." \nMeador shakes the water off his fist and seals up his bag of fish food, glancing around at his other pets. Rather than cats or dogs, gold-flecked piranhas leer out at him, tiny rainbow-colored tetras dart past and an African sultana turtle lurks under a dark deck hidden beneath strands of green vines, a 15-foot palm tree and several orchids. \nThese pets and plants live in a room that is half jungle and half underwater adventure. The room serves as the showplace for Meador's mail-order fish business, Rainforest Farms International, of which he is the founder, manager and sole employee. It's also his basement, but hardly the sort of basement that's typically found in southern Indiana.\nRather than a dark, damp storage place, this basement teems with light and life. An 18-by-11-foot pond with bright blue tile and a gentle waterfall occupies the front corner of the room, and a smaller eight-by-eight-foot pond is fitted in the back. Several 150-gallon fish tanks line the walls, one holding seven piranhas and a school of gold tetras, another holding striped Brazilian angelfish -- the largest type of angelfish in the world. Amid the tropical plants surrounding the tanks and\nponds, Meador keeps about a dozen geckos (his house cats ate the 40 he used to keep) as well as tiny red-eyed tree frogs.\n"It's neat to be here at night because you can hear the frogs calling when it gets dark," says Meador.\nThis bright showroom is fully Meador's creation, work and world. He pays close attention to any of the drama going on inside his tanks and ponds -- if two fish are breeding, he knows, or if a fish is getting sick, he knows why and how to help it. He talks to his favorites in a low murmur and points out their unique colors and personality traits. And in the summer, when the water temperature in his larger pond is around 84 degrees, he jumps in and snorkels with his three stingrays in their 5,000-gallon home.\nThe upstairs of Meador's house completely obscures the vivacious world below. The house is a few blocks outside of downtown Bloomington in the midst of a mainly student area, and no signs of Meador's work are visible from the outside. A calculator, well-used notebook and several phones pushed into a pile on Meador's dining room table give off a slight aura of business. And only a few telltale details betray Meador's fish passion, such as a faded breeder sticker on his front window, an empty fish tank pushed into the corner of his brick porch and various fish statues, posters and rugs scattered casually throughout the house. \nMeador's backyard is similar -- nothing but a few empty tanks give any indication of his work. But stepping into Meador's white "garage" is a different story, as the occupants aren't cars. Instead, the garage holds the majority of Meador's 220 fish tanks (50 55-gallon, 110 29-gallon, 40 15-gallon, one 120-gallon, 12 125-gallom, four 150-gallon and three 75-gallon tanks). This is Meador's discus hatchery, the main money-maker of Rainforest Farms, Intl. \nDiscus are rounded, tropical fish that grow up to four inches and are usually spotted, striped or solid in a wide array of bright colors. Meador's hatchery boasts around 100 breeding pairs at the moment, 64 of which he keeps in 32 tanks against one wall of the hatchery fondly referred to as "Motel 6." Inside their fish motels, breeding pairs drift around the tank, sometimes spawning tiny black eggs on the red bricks placed inside the tank. The entire hatchery is a discus paradise: the temperature is kept in the mid-to-high 80s, which causes the to fish grow more quickly and keeps their metabolism high, as well as mimics the temperatures typical of Singapore and Malaysia, the natural habitat of many lines of discus. Water circulates constantly, and Meador cleans the tanks every two days to keep their environment ideal. And he constantly tries to cross different types of discus in order to create new colors and patterns on the fish, as many of his customers are seeking a specific fish. Among his current population are several types of Snakeskin discus, a few Red Dragons and some Solid Turquoise discus, all of which drift around the tanks like shiny orbs of color. \nMeador ships fish all over the United States and beyond -- he even sent some discus to Aruba just a few days ago. Locally, though, Meador only is known to a select few. He chose the fish and setup of the 250-gallon saltwater tank at Uncle Fester's Jungle Room, which he maintains constantly and to which he constantly adds fish. Currently, he's waiting for a new shipment of powder blue Tangs, an emperada Angelfish and some colorful purple and blue clams, which he'll add to the tank this week. Additionally, the Jungle Room includes another 30 gallon saltwater tank and two 55 gallon freshwater tanks -- all maintained by Meador.\nThe big saltwater tank near the bar and the door is the main attraction, though, but it's not without its problems. Though Meador carefully researched a good combination of compatible fish and coral for the tank, several fish have had to be removed for tearing up the tank or being too aggressive. Additionally, Meador told Fester's owner Aaron Steele the small pufferfish inside the tank would be toxic to the tank environment if it died, which it did.\n"We watched it really closely all the time," Steele said. "When we saw it hit the bottom, I yelled, 'Get the net!' and we got it out really fast."\nIn addition to the four tanks at the Jungle Room, Meador estimates he's set up around 75 tanks for individuals around Bloomington. In the future, he plans to put together a book on his practice, expand his saltwater fish collection with seven new tanks in his basement, try to add a new strain of discus every two months (Meador plans to add 15 new lines to his current 40) and possibly even open a pet store, if he can find an investor. In the meantime, he's living quite comfortably because, many times, a fish he's paid merely nine dollars for can be resold for $75. Unique breeding pairs can go for $600 up to $1,000, and some of his customers order several thousand dollars worth of fish at a time. \n"I'm not rich, but my business took in over $100,000 last year," Meador said. "I invested most of it back into the business." \nMeador's business is strictly mail-order at the moment, so he doesn't invite passersby into his home as a normal business might. However, Bloomington does have several options for residents who want to start a fresh or saltwater tank immediately -- most notably, A Glimpse of Nature, PETsMART and Wal-Mart.\nTerri Stillions, the manager and owner of A Glimpse of Nature, spends most of her time each day answering questions about setting up tanks, and though she sells both saltwater and freshwater tropical fish, she said saltwater fish are easily the most popular.\nLike Meador, Stillions sets up tanks for customers and tries to find compatible fish and tank setups for them. She enjoys her work and setting up saltwater tanks in particular because of the "live" sand and rocks teeming with microorganisms, which tanks must have in order for the fish to survive. \n"When people use live sand and rock, things develop," Stillion said. "There's always something new to see." \nSince only a few places in Bloomington sell saltwater and freshwater tropical fish, Stillion is supportive of Meador or others starting pet stores with fish. She believes the market is wide open in Bloomington. \nMeador's store front is just a distant goal, though. He actually has a business degree from IU, and though he hardly went the corporate route for which the Kelley School of Business is often known, his entrepreneurial skills have come through in his breeding business. After 10 years on the job, Meador, like Stillions, is doing what he loves and has no plans to stop.\n"Of course, if I could make $50,000 more a year, I'd be happy," he says wryly. \nAnd if things go as he plans, that just may happen. \n-- Contact Weekend editor Kelly Phillips at kephilli@indiana.edu.
