Friday, November 1, 1935
Page 2
Daily Nebraskan
Ry The Associated Press
N
Digest
.it
eaMaii makes new arms
control offer to Soviets
ev
WASHINGTON - President Reagan
announced Thursday he was making a
new nuclear weapons limitation prop
osal to the Soviet Union and would
request the current round of negotia
tions in Geneva be extended to con
sider it. The proposal will build on the
recent Soviet proposal and emphasize
reductions in "destabilizing" nuclear
arms systems, he said.
In a nationally televised statement,
Reagan said the latest Soviet offer
"unfortunately fell considerably short"
in certain areas. But, he said, there also
were positive "seeds" for an agreement
and that he had built on them with the
new U.S. offer.
Significantly, he called both sides'
proposals "milestones" in the quest for
reductions of nuclear weapons. "I
believe progress is indeed possible if
the Soviet leadership is willing to
match our own commitment to a better
relationship," Reagan said.
Just before his announcement, Rea
gan told four Soviet journalists in an
interview that he would accept some of
the figures proposed by Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev, who called last
month for a reduction of about 50 per
cent in missiles and bombers carrying
nuclear warheads.
Reagan said the U.S. offer calls for
"deep cuts" in offensive weapons, re
search on defensive systems and "no
cheating." But the president said he
would divulge no further details. He
said the American proposal would be
offered in Geneva, Switzerland on
Friday.
"It is my hope that our new proposal
would enable both our nations to start
moving away from ever-larger arsenals,"
the president said.
The Soviet proposal, in a letter to
Reagan from Gorbachev last month,
and the U.S. response are designed to
make headway in the slow-moving
negotiations before the two leaders
meet at the summit in the Swiss city
Nov. 19-20.
"Arms control is a result," Reagan
said. "First you've got to eliminate the
suspicious and paranoia between us."
He called the U.S. proposal serious and
detailed.
Life after farming
Transition program helps farmers
find new careers, ways of life
LINCOLN Whether they like it or
not, some former farmers are discover
ing there is life after farming.
The depressed agricultural economy
is forcing them into that realization as
they leave the farm at a near-record
pace. For most, the transition wasn't
easy.
Accustomed to self-sufficiency and
working outdoors, many farmers don't
quicYdy' embrace the prospect of
punching time clocks at factories or
stores. For many, working off the farm
is a new experience.
Gov. Bob Kerrey has predicted 15,000
Nebraskans will lose their jobs in the
next year because of the sagging farm
economy. Officials say hundreds, per
haps thousands, have lost their jobs
this past year.
Dave Anderson, coordinator of the
Nebraska Farmers in Transition pro
gram, said the situation has caused
tremendous upheaval in rural Ne
braska. "There are some really hellish times
in farm families before a decision (to
leave the farm) is made," he said.
The transition can be accompanied
by depression, alcoholism, suicide and
domestic abuse, all of which are on the
rise in rural areas. And, officials say,
guilt often is the biggest problem of all.
"When a guy loses his farm, he not
only feels he failed his parents and
grandparents who farmed it before
him, he knows his children and grand
children now won't be able to farm,"
Anderson said.
Donna Saathoff of Diller, a psychi
atric health nurse, likened the process
to that of dealing with a death in the
family.
Murdockfamily readjusts
after giving up farm
By Dan Looker
1 he Lincoin Star
M11DOCK - Fifty-three years
ago Vern Lau was born "upstairs in
the north bedroom" of the brick
farmhouse that his father and
grandfather built. Yet, not until
recently has he been able to savor
rural living.
One of a growing number of
former farmers, he now commutes
to Lincoln, where he works as a
mechanic. The two-year battle in
bankruptcy court, the struggle
against falling crop prices, the viral
disease in his hog herd, the sale of
lis farm machinery last December
are over.
The Lau family has emerged from
what state officials euphemistically
call a "transitioa"
Today, while Vern feels more
relaxed in his new role, his wife,
Dorothy, recalls the depression and
bitterness that the family suffered
last winter. Their youngest son,
Doug, feels frustrated, shut out from
a dream of carrying on a farming
tradition.
On a warm October Saturday, as
their neighbors were preparing to
climb into combines for long days of
harvesting, Vern and Dorothy could
spend part of a morning reflecting
on the changes in their lives.
The couple feels lucky to have
left farming last year. They were
able to settle their largest debt
$172,000 to the South Omaha Pro
duction Credit Association by
signing over their remaining crops
and 70 acres of the last 80 acres they
owned. They had once farmed about
600 acres of land they were renting
or buying.
"Everything has deteriorated so
much more, even since we sold the
machinery," Dorothy says, referring
to falling land and machinery pri
ces. Her family's machinery sale last
December brought in $59,000, with
the 6-year-old combine going for
$27,000.
Before the machinery sale, Vern
answered a newspaper ad for a
mechanic at Lincoln's Snyder In
dustries, a company that makes
fiberglass tanks.
Vern started the job a week after
the machinery sale. Like farming, it
offered variety building mainte
nance, making electrical repairs on
the mold ovens, repairing vehicles
and machinery. His 30-mile com
mute began at 6:15 a.m. and he was
home by 4 p.m.
Last summer Vern realized that
in the afternoons "I had five hours
of daylight and the rest of the
farmers were out working." Both
Dorothy and Vern planted gardens.
"It took the hog lot; we had his and
hers," Vern recalls.
Vern began to feel a sense of
relief. He told his friend, American
Agriculture Movement leader Corky
Jones of Brownville, that farmers
didn't realize the pressure they
were under until they'd quit.
"My workload going into the city
was a heck of a lot easier than farm
ing," Vern recalls now. "I had more
time to look around and I realized
one day the grass was greener, the
trees were taller and the sky was
bluer."
"They actually go through a grieving
process of losing something dear," she
said. "They have a lost of self-image.
You are seeing more domestic abuse,
marital discord and alcoholism. Schools
are reporting an increase in attempted
suicide by students."
And like any grieving process, Saa
thoff said, adjustments can take a year
or more.
The Farmers in Transition program
is trying to help farmers ease into new
careers and ways of life. Administered
by the Greater Nebraska Job Training
Program and state Department of Labor,
Farmers in Transition started about a
year ago.
Before depleting its first-year funds
in mid-summer, the program had placed
177 farmers, ranchers and spouses in
on-the-job training positions and 39 in
classroom training at community col
leges. The program recently received a $1
million federal grant to help 600 of the
displaced farmers, ranchers and other
workers who will lose their jobs this
year because of the depressed farm
economy.
Mollie Anderson, director of the
Greater Nebraska Job Training Pro
gram, said "Farmers in Transition"
most likely will be changed to "Agri
culture in Transition," which would
apply to ranchers and agribusiness
workers, as well as farmers.
The $1 million will be used to set up
six centers in connection with com
munity colleges in Scottsbluff, North
Platte, Grand Island, Beatrice, Norfolk
and Fremont. The centers should open
in December, she said.
The center will assess applicants'
job skills and financial needs. In some
cases, it will provide individual and
family counseling and will direct fami
lies to other agencies.
She said farmers don't turn to the
program until they feel they have ex
hausted all other options. "They almost
have to reach rock-bottom before they
decide they need a new job."
Farmers are placed in jobs where
the program shares the training cost
with the employer, who eventually as
sumes full financial responsibility.
Some return to the classroom for up to
a year, although there is less interest in
that.
"On-the-job training is what farmers
like to get because they need that cash
income," said Anderson. "The drop-out
rate is very low. The people need the
jobs and are glad to have them. And
they are very good workers."
So far, the program has placed
farmers as truck drivers, machinists,
mechanics, clerks, school bus drivers
and nurses aides.
The program tries to match people
with jobs near their present communi
ties, although long-distance commut
ing often is necessary.
n
bin-
Radioactive gas could threaten millions
ATLANTA Federal health officials said Thursday that millions of
Americans may be exposed to higher-than-recommended levels of radon, a
naturally occurring radioactive gas blamed for as many as 30,000 lung
cancer deaths each year.
The radon problem attracted national attention last December when an
engineer with a company building the Limerick Nuclear Power Plant near
Philadelphia was found to have been exposed to very high levels of
radiation not from his work, but from the air in his home, which sat on
an area of natural uranium deposits.
A subsequent survey of more than 2,000 nearby houses found more than
40 percent had radon levels above the Environmental Protection Agency's
recommended guidelines for indoor exposure, and about 7 percent had
levels above the higher, stricter levels for people regularly exposed on the
job, the CDC said. '
"A sizable percentage of houses across the United States maybe a
couple of percent or so - could be above the (indoor) guidelines," said
Matthew Zack, a researcher with the Atlanta-based CDC.
"That doesn't mean people should panic," but as many as six million
Americans may live In homes where radon levels may be of concern, he
said.
Hostages' fate linked to Kuwait
BAALBEK, Lebanon The leader of a radical Shi'ite Moslem group
says there's no hope of five Americans and four Frenchmen kidnapped in
Lebanon being released until Kuwait frees 17 extremists convicted of
bombings,
"I wish the demands of the kidnappers could be met and all the
Americans freed," said Hussein Musawi, leader of the pro-Iranian Islamic
Amal, a splinter group of the main Amal movement.
But he said Islamic Jihad, or Islamic Holy War, the group of Shi'ite
fundamentalists believed to hold the U.S. and French hostages, "will not
release them until the 17 people held prisoner in Kuwait are freed."
Release of the 17, most of them Shi'ites, has been Islamic Jihad's main
demand since it began kidnapping westerners in January 1984.
Kuwait refuses to release the men, jailed for bombing the U.S. and
French embassies in December 1983.
Islamic Jihad claimed on Oct. 4 that it had killed a sixth American
hostage, U.S. diplomat William Buckley, in revenge for Israel's air strike
against Palestinian guerrillas in Tunis. But Buckley's body has not been
found, and American officials have said they cannot confirm the claim.
3 more announce bid for governor
OMAHA Three more names have been thrown into the hat of
Former state Sen. Jack Milles of Lincoln, former Douglas County
Commissioner P. J. Morgan and former Lincoln Mayor Helen Boosalis join a
group of at least 14 possible candidates to succeed Gov. Bob Kerrey, who
has announced he will not seek re-election next year.
Mills, a Democrat turned Republican, is executive director of the
Nebraska Association of County Officials, He said he has almost reached a
decision about whether to become a candidate for the GOP nomination for
governor.
Morgan, a former state senator and unsuccessful candidate for the
Republican 2nd District nomination in 1976, said running for governor is
"something I have to give consideration to."
Boosalis, director of the State Commission on Aging, said she has not
given serious thought to running for the Democratic nomination but did
not rule out seeking the nomination for governor or lieutenant governor.
Universities aid apartheid battle
NEW YORK U.S. colleges and universities are opening another front
in the battle against apartheid besides just selling off South African
related stock holdings: providing scholarships to South African blacks
wishing to attend multiracial universities.
That is among the ideas being discussed by leaders of 13 top U.S.
universities and five foundations who are exploring ways to form partner
ships with non-discriminatory South African universities to provide edu
cational opportunities for that country's blacks.
The group, which includes the presidents of Harvard, Princeton, Yale,
Stanford and Brown universities as well as the heads of the Ford Founda
tion, the Carnegie Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation, met here
on Oct. 16 to hear ideas from leaders of South African universities on how
American universities and foundations might help ease the plight of that
nation's blacks.
Stuart Saunders, vice chancellor and principal of the University of Cape
Town, told the presidents in remarks made available to The Associated
Press that "funds are needed to ensure a steady increase in the number of
black South Africans attending South African universities as undergradu
ates and postgraduates." "
He said each student would need abcut $2,500 to attend the university
in 1986.
Actors to be notified of kissing scenes
LOS ANGELES Fueled by fear that AIDS can be spread by open
mouth kissing, the Screen Actors Guild has asked movie producers and
agents to notify performers if any film scenes include such intimate
contact.
Notification of such scenes must come before an actor signs for a role,
the talent union said Wednesday.
Since it was disclosed in July that actor Rock Hudson was suffering
jrom AIDS, questions have been raised about the safety of open-mouth
kissing for movie and television scenes.
Hudson, who died Oct. 2 of complications from the acquired immune
fhl1 CaSS7 ?n.drome had a hissing scene last year with Linda Fvans on
the ABC televison series "Dynasty." Evans has refused to comment on
wnetner she was concerned or had medical tests because of her contact
with Hudson.
fn.fnlc!?- ha?l.sai? that while the suspected AIDS virus has been
Sit if ey do not beIieve the disease can be transmitted by
w57 say the concentration of the virus in saliva is too low.
hvSSaVrWarned that il conceivable the disease might be spread
cli 11 X? itf a cont,aining virus comes into contact with an open
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