Rage 6- The Rehreiul College Reaeon - Thursday, November 12 . 1998
Felons, dead people
on Va.
By Craig Tim berg and Peter Pac
The Washington Post
Virginia auditors said Monday that
more than 11,000 ineligible lelons and
nearly 1.500 ilead people are regis
tered to vote in the stale, a problem
officials said eould undermine the in-
tegrity of elections if lelf unchecked.
in Fairfax and Prince William coun
ties alone, there are 975 felons and
151 dead people registered to vote.
making voter lists there among the
worst in the state.
"This points pretty clearly to the
need for better list maintenance by the
Stale Board of Elections and the lo
cal registrars," said auditor Glen
Tittermary. "Every city and county in
the stale had at least two felons on the
list."
In last November's election, 1,700
felons east ballots statewide, the re
port said, and 144 dead people were
recorded as voting. Officials believe
the latter number is the result ol cleri
cal or other errors, not voter fraud.
Auditors blamed the problem on
outdated computers and poor manage
ment at the State Board of Elections,
saying the agency should have a sys
tem for regularly cross-checking voter
Too tall a human price is why
many soldiers quit
By Mark Eril/
Los Anueles rimes
PORT DRUM. N.Y. -- When he was
considering college during the peace
ful days of the Cold War. Damon
Wright, a native ol Grand Island. N.Y..
looked at ROTC more as a financing
source than-a. c»suev -option,
larlv since he w anted to attend a costly
; engineering school.
He graduated in 1992 from Clarkson
College and was commissioned as a
lieutenant with the Kith Mountain's 2-
14, which fought in Vietnam, Korea
and Nazi Germany, wrested Guam
from Spain, battled Confederates in
Virginia and Indians in Montana,
though it got to Little Big Horn 100
late to help Custer.
Wright and the rest of the 2-1 4 were
assigned to Somalia at a time when the
humanitarian mission had collapsed
into a hunt for an intransigent warlord.
One veteran of the campaign re
membered coming to an intersection,
taking a left and running into "every
war movie you'd ever seen." Bombs
went off. rockets whizzed by, bullets
from every direction bounced oft
buildings and skipped across the road.
Soldiers today grope for words to de
scribe the sheer quantity of carnage,
the stunning density ol sound that sur
rounded them, the apocalyptic image
of burning barricades ol tires and the
Rural Texans mourn dogs killed
By Paul Duggan
The Washington Post
NLW BRAUNFELS, Texas - On
the morning after her husband Osier
died of a stroke last March, Eva
Soechting woke up in their farmhouse
and realized she was alone lorthe first
time in 57 years. Their son and daugh
ter were grow n, moved on. It w as just
her and the dogs, and one aloof eat.
The dogs -- Sarah, Beullah and Pup
-- relieved the numbness of
Soeehting's days, running and bark
ing in the barnyard and across her 70
acres of mostly idle land. Over time,
she noticed each had a distinct per
sonality. She loved them, and she is
sure they loved her.
"I’d like to have them back," said
Soechting, 87, managing not to cry. ”
'Course, I can't have them back, I
know. That’d be impossible."
The dogs were casualties of a liver
ailment that has killed an estimated
30 dogs in Central Texas since Sep
tember. The canine catastrophe at first
puzzled veterinarians, but now the
voter rolls
rolls with lists of felons and death
records
Agency Secretary M. Bruce Mead
ows acknowledged at a hearing Mon
day, "Em not the best day-to-day
manager in the world." and he said
he would not seek reappointment
when his lour-vear term ends in Janu-
Several stale and local officials
joined the criticism.
"I’m dumbfounded," said Del.
David B. Albo. R-Fairfax. "It makes
me very mad. During an election, we
are practically fighting for every vote,
and to have an ineligible voter on the
rolls, let alone allow them to vote,
makes me very mud."
Part of the challenge, say state and
national election specialists, is the
federal "motor-voter” law, which
makes it easier for voters to register
but harder for officials to make sure
records are accurate and complete.
Under the law, officially the National
Voter Registration Act of 1995, vot
ers can register at state agencies such
as the Department of Motor Vehicles
or by mail.
While the law has achieved its goal
of getting more people registered,
elections officials all over the coun
Doppler whir of choppers rising and
falling, looking for something to kill.
Because he was an M-h() gunner.
Specialist Jim Guel/.ow's job was to
blast away down alleys and side streets
while the rest of the platoon crossed
intersections. He looked through his
night scope, bred his machine gun and
vWHel*ed!l»vs.Aavgoib .fly baekwujuJ/
squirm in the dirt, dually he still. He
only had a split second to decide: Was
that running woman carrying ammo?
Or just her kid?
"There was a couple of times I
thought I shouldn't have hit something
I did," said Guelzow, recalling the 30
or so people he's sure he mowed down.
By the lime the battle ended 15 hours
later, 18 Americans were dead and
scores wounded. Hundreds ol Soma
lis died, A few days later, President
Clinton announced he was pulling
troops out of Somalia.
During a welcoming ceremony back
at Fort Drum, then-Army Chief of
Staff Gen. Gordon Sullivan told the
weary 2-14 that they wouldn’t be sent
anywhere for at least a year. Nine
months later, Wright was leading his
platoon to Haiti on a peacekeeping
mission so frustrating that he said his
troops weren’t even allowed to load
their rifles during a raid on a militia,
though they did anyway.
When he came back to Fort Drum,
Wright said money was tight, ammo
mystery is solved. The epidemic,
which appears to be waning, is be
ing blamed on the inadvertent use of
tainted corn in the production of dog
food at a Temple, Texas, factory, ac
cording to the manufacturer, Doane
Products Co.
More than 50 types of dry dog food
produced at the plant in July and Au
gust are being recalled this week
from stores throughout Texas and in
parts of Louisiana. But Doane said
the batch confirmed to be fatal was
sold only in Central Texas, much of
it in and near New Braunfels, a farm
ing community 30 miles north of San
Antonio. As many as 20 dogs have
died in the New Braunfels area, their
livers poisoned by a corn mold called
aflatoxin 81.
"My clients are upset, very upset,”
said Mark Rowley, who has treated
about 16 liver-damaged dogs at his
Loop 337 Veterinary Clinic here.
Most of his clients, Rowley said,
appreciate that Doane has been forth
right in admitting responsibility, but
that has not cased their worry and
World and Nation
try complain that it makes it tougher
to protect voter lists from fraud and
error. The several state agencies that
now collect registration applications
have little ability to make sure that
voters meet citizenship and other re-
quirements.
"The problems are all over the
place." said New Hampshire Secre
tary of Stale William M. Gardner,
president of the National Association
of
Secretaries of State. "You can tegis
lerund vole without (an election oili
cial) even seeing you."
Registrars in Fairfax and Prince
William counties expressed frustra
tion that the State Board of Elections
doesn’t have a computer system that
does what the auditors did: cross
check the voter rolls with lists of fel-
ons and people who have died. State
officials are studying creating such a
system. Local registrars say they don't
have access to information on felons
and must rely on the state, which
maintains the voter rolls.
'"We don’t have the ability to de
termine who is a felon or who is dead
because we have no access to that
kind of information," said Robert W.
Beers, the Fairfax registrar.
was rationed and live-fire training cur
tailed. His wife was getting ready to
graduate from law school. Rather than
face getting shipped out again, he took
his discharge. "We both decided that
we didn't want that lifestyle." said
Elizabeth Wright.
He works in Buffalo, not too far
-uwqy, frpip Gueizow, vyhc* also decided
not to rc-enlixt and now works as-a
mechanical designer.
Both are watching where their old
unit goes next. Though the di vision as
a whole takes over the mission next
year, the 2-14 is coming off a nine
month stint in Bosnia that lasted twice
as long as it was supposed to.
One common casualty of such
heavy-duty deployment is the collapse
of families, soldiers say.
E-5 Scott Hartman, who fought in
Somalia with Wright and Guezlow, got
out last year after nine years because
he was staring at an assignment to
Korea after stints in Germany. Haiti
and the Sinai. Now he’s a Bell Atlan
tic telephone repairman in Lebanon,
Pa,, making almost twice what he
made in the Army. He doesn't miss the
old days.
"You’re constantly in the Held," said
Hartman, who blames his deployments
for the breakup of his first marriage in
1996. "At the drop of a hat you're in
some Third World country fighting
over who knows what.”
grief. Thirteen of the dogs he has
treated have died so far.
"We as veterinarians are also very,
very upset," he said, "because there's
very little we can do for these pels
once they're affected."
The company. based in
Brentwood, Tenn., has issued a blan
ket public apology to families whose
pets have died and has set up a toll
free hot line for owners who fear their
dogs have eaten tainted food, said
John van Mol, a Doane spokesman.
The company is paying veterinary
bills for dogs made sick by the food,
van Mol said, and plans to dispatch
representatives to meet personally
with every owner who lost a dog,
once an "appropriate” period of
mourning has passed.
They better be braced for an ear
ful when they knock on Soeehting’s
door.
"I’ll give ’em hell!” she said in her
raspy voice. She shook her head,
muttering. "Damn sorry company
and their damn sorry food.”
Sarah lay down and died near the
British public shrugs off media
frenzy over gay politicians
By Marjorie Miller
Los Angeles Times
LONDON -- "TELL US THE
TRUTH TONY, Are we being run by
a gay mafia?" cried a front-page head
line in the Sun tabloid after a second
member of Prime Minister Tony
Blair’s Cabinet announced that he is
gay and two others were "outed” in
the media.
The response Tuesday came not
from Blair but from the British pub
lic: Who cares?
Despite the efforts of some British
media to make political hay of gays
in government, an opinion poll pub
lished in the Guardian newspaper
showed that a majority of Britons
think that homosexuality is morally
acceptable and not an impediment to
holding high public office.
“Following the lesson of the
Clinton-Lewinsky affair, we may be
seeing that the public is more toler
ant than the press thinks it is," said
Ralph Legrine, a professor at the Cen
ter for Mass Communication Re
search in Leicester. "They are less
concerned about private details than
the media are. ... There is a feeling
that if people don’t want to announce
their sexuality in public, no one
should point a finger."
Columnist David Aaronovitch con
curred in the Independent newspaper
Tuesday. Noting that Republican ef
forts to ax President Clinton with the
sex scandal involving former intern
Monica S. Lewinsky had claimed
House Speaker New t Gingrich's scalp
and not the president's, he wrote that
British newspapers "have not quite
caught up with hist week's news Irom
America."
Arrests are made in Baja
California massacre
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Los Angeles Times
MEXICO CITY - After a two
month investigation, authorities Tues
day announced their first arrests in the
gruesome slaying of 19 men, women
and children in Baja California, the
bloodiest episode of drug violence
Mexico has witnessed.
Authorities said the Sept. 17 mas
sacre near Ensenada was committed
by a gang that apparently worked for
Ramon Arellano Felix, who is on the
FBl's 10 Most Wanted list and is al
legedly one of Mexico's top traffick
ers. The gang had set out to settle a
drug feud with Fermin Castro, an al
leged small-time narcotics dealer who
was among the victims, they said.
"The members of the armed group
had previously drunk alcohol and
used cocaine, which explains the bru
smokehouse one night a lew weeks
ago, and Pup turned up dead last
Tuesday in a field near the barn. A
few days later, Beullah was pul to
sleep at Rowley's clinic.
Soechting sat by the wood stove
in the dim light of her kitchen, where
once she would listen through the
window to the dogs at play outside.
Now she heard only the autumn wind
in the oak trees. The cat wandered
by and rubbed against her, but she
paid him no mind.
"All three got along," she said,
speaking of the dogs. "I’d sit out yon
der by the yard fence there in my
chair and they’d run around. They’d
try to see how fast old Sarah could
run, and old Pup would be trying to
catch up with her. Well, that’d make
me laugh! Old Sarah, she’d make a
shortcut, run around there behind the
storehouse, and Pup would be look
ing for her."
Sarah and Beullah, collies born in
the same litter, were given to
Soechting and her husband by a
granddaughter about six years ago.
Over the weekend. Agriculture
Minister Nick Brown was forced to
announce that he is gay when a former
lover tried to sell his story to the Sun's
sister paper, News of the World.
Brown made the disclosure with the
bitter aside. "I had rather hoped I
could have a private life like other
people"
Deputy Prime Minister John
Prescott rushed to Brow n's side, say
ing that the British newspapers had
become "judge, jury and executioner
in this matter. It's totally unaccept
able."
Brown's announcement came on
the heels of the resignation of Welsh
Seeretary Ron Davies after he was
robbed in a London park known for
gay cruising. Davies, who is married,
initially denied newspaper allegations
that he was gay and refused to explain
why he had resigned over being the
victim of a crime.
The Guardian later reported that
Davies had agreed to meet a man in
the park who was threatening to
blackmail him over alleged sexual ad
vances. Davies then gave an emo
tional news conference in which he
said, “We are what we are. We are all
different,” but said that his sexual ori
entation was his own business.
Subsequently, Matthew Parris, a
gay journalist for the Times of Lon
don and former Conservative mem
ber of Parliament, declared on the
British Broadcasting Corp. that there
are two other homosexual members
of Blair's Cabinet - Culture Minister
Chris Smith, who is openly gay, and
Trade and Industry Minister Peter
Mandelson. whom Parris said "is cer-
tainly gay."
Mandelson did not respond, but
tality with which they carried out the
massacre." the head ol Mexico's ju
dicial police. Gen. Guillermo Alvarez
Nava, told a news conference Tues
day.
The killing at a ranch in El Sau/al,
just outside Ensenada, shocked Mexi
cans with its cruelty. Among the vic
tims were children aged I and 2.
Three gang members have been ar
rested and charged with murder, pos
session of drugs and arms, and orga
nized-crime activities, Alvarez Nava
said. Authorities also are seeking ar
rest warrants against seven other al
leged members of the group, includ
ing its leader, identified as Arturo
Martinez Gonzalez.
Authorities said they cracked the
case after the execution of two men
in an Oct. 29 incident in Baja Cali
fornia. That shooting bore the hall
marks of the Ensen n da massacre: A
by tainted food
Pup. an Australian cattle dog, was a
gift from her son a lew years ago, to
help lend the 25 head of cows on the
farm.
"He was a heeler,” she said. "He
was just getting to where, when I'd
want the cows to get in the pen, and
one or two would lag behind, Ed say
to Pup, 'Go get 'em!’ And, by God,
he'd grab 'em by the heels, and
they’d let out for the barnyard. You
ought to have seen it!"
In mid-September, Rowley said, he
and other veterinarians in the area
began seeing more and more eases
of dead dogs with their livers discol
ored yellow and splotched with red.
Eventually they sent tissue samples
to the Veterinary Medical Diagnos
tic Laboratory at Texas A&M Uni
versity.
After several weeks of tests, said
toxicologist Catherine Barr, the lab
determined that microscopic lesions
on the livers had been caused by afla
toxin 81, a mold that grows inside
corn kernels that have been cracked
open by insects in droughts like the
BBC honchos did. issuing an edict
that any reference to Mandelson's
sexuality was off-limits. This
prompted a revolt among BBC edi
tors and reporters, who charged it was
censorship and cronyism.
Gay rights activists condemned the
involuntary "outing ol politicians.
Stonewall, a British gay and lesbian
lobby, attacked Newsol the World lor
forcing Brown to declare Ins sexual
orientation. "Coming out is a personal
decision and should happen at the
time of their own choosing." the or-
gani/ation stud 1 a prepared slate
But some Times readers disagreed
in Tuesday’s letters to the editor, stat
ing that the public has a right to know
which of their representatives are gay.
particularly when Parliament is con
sidering such issues as whether to
lower the age of consent for gav sex.
The popular Sun tabloid insisted the
public has a "right to know" whether
the country is run by a "gay mafia ol
politicians, lawyers, palace courtiers
and TV bigwigs ... a closed world ol
men with a mutual self-interest."
But two newspaper polls showed
that the Sun was misreading public
sentiment. In the Guardian poll, 56
percent of respondents said they
thought homosexuality is morally ac
ceptable compared to 36 percent who
said no, and 52 percent said being
openly gay was compatible with hold
ing a Cabinet post. The Mirror tab
loid asked its readers if they want to
know the sexual orientation of their
members of Parliament, and by late
afternoon nearly two-thirds ol those
who responded had said "no."
group of men wearing uniforms ol the
police and army gunned dowm victims
as they lay on the Boor.
Authorities gathered enough infor
mation from survivors of the two at
tacks to detain Armando Villegas
Santacruz, who confessed to partici
pating in the executions, officials said.
He, in turn, led them to a ranch
where officials discovered arms and
military and police uniforms appar
ently used in the Ensenada attack,
authorities said.
According to the investigation, the
massacre at Ensenada occurred when
the gang went to take KOO kilos of
marijuana from Eermin Castro to
settle an old debt, Alvarez Nava said.
At least one of the gang members
being sought is believed to be in the
United States, the authorities said.
one Texas has gone through this year.
The lab then figured out what the
dogs had in common: All had been
eating food produced at Doane's
Temple plant in July and August.
The lab has been getting calls from
worried dog owners, said Barr. "Ex
plaining some of this medical stuff
to owners is very difficult, especially
if their animals are sick,” she said.
"Because once the animal is sick
enough for the symptoms to be rec
ognizable, it's not a very good prog
nosis at all."
Bcullah had the symptoms: She
wouldn’t cal, had almost no energy,
was vomiting and appeared de
pressed. Last Wednesday, as Row ley
took Beullah away, he promised
Socchting he would try to find her
another dog.
Socchting watched them go. "I told
him, I said, 'Well, I want one that'll
bark and run around. Don’t bring
some quiet one,’ '’ she recalled. ”1
don't like the quiet."