NewsQgest
Friday, September 22, 1995 Page 2
Senate votes down ban on aid
< . . .*
to U.N. family planning programs
WASHINGTON — The Senate
rejected a move Thursday to prohibit
U.S. aid to U.N. family planning
programs. But while losing that battle.
Sen. Jesse Helms still managed to put
his stamp on foreign aid spending.
The North Carolina Republican,
who is chairman of the Senate For
eign Relations Committee, won ap
proval of amendments blocking the
Agency for International Develop
ment from moving to new quarters
and setting conditions on future aid
to the Palestine Liberation Organiza
tion.
The Senate voted 57 to 43 to reject
a Helms amendment restoring a ban
on U.S. funding for the United Na
tions Population Fund unless it ter
minates its activities in China. China
is widely accused of forcing women
to undergo abortion.
The bill, approved by the Senate
on a vote of 91 to 9, appropriates a
total of $12.3 billion — $2.4 billion
less than President Clinton requested
— for foreign aid and other interna
tional programs in fiscal 1996 begin
ning Oct. 1.
The measure now goes to confer
ence with the House, which passed a
bill providing $300 million less than
the Senate version and also included
strong anti-abortion language.
After the vote, State Department
lobbyist Wendy Sherman said the
bill “has some problems and we hope
they’ll get worked out in conference.”
Before the bill reached the Senate
floor, anti-abortion language ap
proved by the House was deleted.
Helms told senators that “the foreign
aid conference report may experi
ence some trouble in the House un
less this and other pro-life and pro
child provisions remain.”
Noting that the measure would
give $35 million to the U.N. agency,
Helms said, it was “$35 million too
much of the taxpayers’ money."
Supporters of funding the U.N.
family planning activities argued that
the fund has a strict policy against
paying for abortions.
In addition, Sen. Patrick Leahy,
D-Vt., said that the bill before the
Senate also bars use of funds for
abortion.
“I want to make sure everybody
understands, no money in this bill
can be used for abortion,” Leahy
said.
Behind the scenes, senators were
trying to come up with a compromise
on a Helms proposal to eliminate
AID, the Arms Control and Disarma
ment Agency and the U.S. Informa
tion Agency and transfer their func
tions to the State Department.
School board pulls book for review
EUREKA, 111. — “The Canter
bury Tales,” that sometimes bawdy
staple of English literature, is off
limits to high school seniors during a
debate over whether it’s too raunchy
for the classroom.
Parents and students in this central
Illinois community have quietly com
plained that portions of the 14th Cen
tury classic are too racy, school offi
cials said Thursday.
As a result, the Eureka School
Board told Nancy Quinn to stop
discussing Geoffrey Chaucer’s tales
with the 45 students in her college
preparatory English class while the
school board reviews the textbook.
“I don’t lose anything by not teach
ing Chaucer, but I think my students
do,” Quinn said.
Board president Eric Franz says
the issue is about education, not cen
sorship. Portions of “The Canterbury
Tales” undoubtedly will be approved,
he said, but the board must make sure
sensitive material is handled appro
priately.
“Our intent was to choose the best
material, to do what’s best for the
students,” he said. “If the students
complain that it’s excessive and em
barrassing, then we need to take a
look at community standards.”
Franz said Quinn’s discussion of
marriage and adultery in some of the
tales prompted complaints early this
year, and dozens of people have ex
pressed support for the board’s ac
tion.
Franz, other officials and teachers
refused to identify anyone with con
cerns. Franz said they were private
discussions.
The tales are fictional stories told
by people on a pilgrimage to Canter
bury. The collection was among the
first major works written in
commoner's English and addressing
issues in everyday life, from religion
to sex.
Juliette Cunico, a Bradley Uni
versity literature professor, said
prime-time television contains more
sex than anything in “The Canter
bury Tales.”
“I think it would be a tragedy if
Chaucer were not included in an ad
vanced English college prep class,”
she said.
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September 22,1995
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Editor J. Christopher Hain
472-1766
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Assoc. News Editors DeDra Janssen
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FAX NUMBER 472-1761
The Daily NebraskanOJSPS 144-080) is
published by the UNL Publications Board.
Nebraska Union 34.1400 R St., Lincoln, NE
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Readers are encouraged to submit story
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT
1995 DAILY NEBRASKAN
There are no smal
victories in the fight
against heart disease.
Long-delayed conference
on crime and genetics
starts despite criticism
BALTIMORE — Amid criti
cism from some scholars and black
leaders, researchers will hold a
long-delayed conference this
weekend on whether some people
are genetically inclined toward
crime.
The conference, which was
originally scheduled for 1992 but
postponed after an uproar, will also
examine possible screening for
genetic markers to indicate crimi
nal tendencies.
The three-day conference, or
ganized by the University of Mary
land, starts today at the private
Aspen Institute in Queenstown,
Md. It will be attended by research
ers in sociology, neuroscience,
psychology and genetics, along
with legal scholars and historians.
Alvin F. Poussaint, a Harvard
professor of psychiatry and a black
civil rights activist, said blacks
should be leery.
“There’s a history going way
back to slavery of white Ameri
cans and Europeans saying that
blacks are in some way inferior
genetically,” he said. “There’s such
a strong chance of misuse that we
have to be extremely cautious.”
Some academics question
whether the research would divert
funding from education, unem
ployment and other causes of
crime. One researcher is criticiz
ing a study that proposes inmates
be tested for levels of a brain chemi
cal that supposedly predicts vio
lent behavior.
Conference organizer David
Wasserman, a legal scholar at the
University of Maryland, said the
research deals with the relation
ship between crime and genetics
in individuals, not groups.
In 1992, the National Institutes
of Health in 1992 froze the $78,000
in funding it had promised for the
conference, prompting cries of
academic censorship from Univer
sity of Maryland officials.
The NIH said a brochure public
cizing the conference gave the im
pression that the agency endorses
a connection between genetics and
crime.
Funding was restored last year
after an NIH appeals board found
the agency didn’t have the power
to freeze already-approved funds.
About 3 5 participants at the con
ference will present papers and
discuss whether tendencies toward
violent or otherwise criminal be
havior can be inherited and, if so,
how this can be measured. Testing
for genetic markers and other so
cial and ethical issues of the re
search also will be discussed.
Evan S. Balaban, a geneticist
and neurobiologist at the Neuro
sciences Institute in San Diego who
will attend the conference, cau
tioned against applying the re
search to public policy.
“I think the problem is a lot of
people on the fringes of science, in
government and law, have this al
most religious belief that things
science produces are true and you
must act on them,” he said.
However, Dorothy Nelkin, a
New York University professor of
sociology, questioned the motives
of many researchers.
“People doing the work are not
geneticists; they are behavioral
psychologists,” she said. “I think
it’s research with a social agenda!’
Man with semiautomatic pistol arrested
From Staff Reports
A man arrested outside Avery Hall
Thursday afternoon was carrying a
loaded .3 8-caliber semiautomatic pis
tol, police said.
Malcolm Komer, 21, was arrested
by Lincoln police on charges of car
rying a concealed weapon and giving
false information. Komer refused to
give his address to police.
Police gave the following account
of the incident:
Officers noticed what appeared to
be a domestic disturbance between
Komer and a woman at 12th and O
streets.
Police stopped a man fitting
Komer’s description at about 2:30
p.m. outside Avery Hall. When asked
to identify himself, Komer gave a
false name, saying he was carrying
no identification.
While patting him down, police
discovered the pistol, an extra clip of
ammunition and Komer’s driver’s
license.
He was arrested without incident.
Violence
Continued from Page 1
at least one each year.
She said abuse cases were differ
ent depending on whether the abuser
was male or female.
When men abuse women, she said,
they typically are bigger and stronger
than the women.
But when a woman abuses a man,
she doesn’t have to be bigger and
stronger then he is, Cauble said.
Sometimes the man just doesn’t want
to fight back, she said, and he takes
the abuse, hoping it will calm her.
The Women’s Center, which is in
room 340 of the Nebraska Union,
offers a support system for victims of
domestic violence.
Judith Kriss, center director, said
domestic violence was a very real
problem.
“At least half of the women I’ve
talked to have had domestic violence
in their past,” she said.
She said the Women ’ s Center tried
to help in two ways.
The first, and most important way,
she said, is insuring the safety of the
person. If a person is in immediate
danger of being harmed, Kriss said
(WARNING Signs
Yottmay be involved in an abusive
relationship if your
boyfriend/girlfriend:
4 Is always jealous.
4 Loses his/her temper easily.
4 Is always giving advice and expects
it to be followed.
4 Wants to be with you all the time.
4 Tells you how to dress.
4 Is always watching you.
4 Had a violent upbringing.
Where to find help:
1-800-944-6282 Nebraska Coalition for
Victims of Crime
475-7273 Rape and Spouse Abuse
Crisis Line
472-0203 Victim Services
472-2597_Women's Center
Source: Lisa Cauble. UNL Victim Services
she would do whatever she could to
help.
The second way is building up the
person’s self esteem. Kriss said vic
tims of domestic violence typically
had their self esteem destroyed by the
experience. She encourages people
so they will have the confidence to
make a decision to get out of the
situation.
