The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, February 25, 1980, Image 5

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Governors seek dump
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United Press International
WASHINGTON — The na
tion’s governors opened their
annual winter meeting Sunday,
looking for a policy on where to
dump dangerous chemical and
nuclear wastes that none of the
states want.
The governors pushed for con
gressional passage of a measure
that would finance accident
cleanup costs and sought to find
an equitable plan to decide where
to put the unwanted, but needed
facilities.
President Carter’s newly
appointed Council on Nuclear
Waste Management was slated
during the National Governors
Association gathering to meet
with Energy Department offi
cials, with whom the panel even
tually will help write a national
policy on the disposal of nuctear
waste.
The nuclear waste issue is
especially ticklish because only
three states — South ocarolina,
Nevada and Washington — now
accept low-level atomic garbage
and there are no permanent sites
for higher-level wastes.
“We all recognize the necessity
of siting, but the feeling of ‘any
where but here’ is a common one
we’ve had to deal with,” said
South Carolina Gov. Richard
Riley, reflecting the consensus of
his colleagues.
There are 35 million tons of
hazardous chemical waste pro
duced annually in the United
States and the volume is in-
creaing by up to 10 percent
annually, officials said.
Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm
said a “national program is ur
gently needed to address the
problem of uncontrolled hazar
dous waste sites.”
Congress is considering two
plans to create a so-called “super
fund” to deal with hazardous taste
emergencies. A House plan
would establish a $1.3 billion re
volving fund, while a Senate
proposal calls for a $500 million
fund.
Most or all of the fund would
come from fees imposed on in
dustries that generate hazardous
wastes.
Changing rape laws aid
victims in court
cases
WASHINGTON — A major
change in rape laws around the coun
try is making it easier for victims of
sexual assaults — men as well as
women — to prosecute their attack
ers, according to groups dealing with
the offense.
In the last eight years, 42 states
have amended their rape laws to res
trict evidence concerning a victim’s
previous sexual history and many
have “neutered” the laws so men can
bring charges if they have been
raped.
“We are getting away from the
concept that the victim is always
female and the assaulter is male,”
says Jean Westler of the National
Center for the Prevention and Con
trol of Rape.
“This has a lot of implications, par
ticularly for men in prison who have
been raped.”
Mary Ann Largen, the director of
an Arlington, Va., women’s resource
organization which monitors sex
offender statutes in 50 states, says
changes in the laws are a “direct re
sult of an extensive and very orga
nized lobby effort on the part of the
women’s movement.”
A report from the National Con
ference of State Legislators shows
most states have adopted new rape
codes that sensitize the investigative
mechanism, re-define sex crimes as a
form of assault and bring sentencing
standards in compliance with other
felonies.
During the first half of 1979, the
FBI says forcible rapes reported rose
11 percent. Government statistics
show 60 of every 100,000 women
were rape victims in 1978.
“We can’t be sure if there is an
increase in reporting or an increase
in the crime itself. Experts now
agree that rape is one of the most
under-reported offenses in this
country,” she said.
At the same time, Largen said
many states changed laws to include
other sexual assault besides rape.
“The new laws are giving prosecu
tors new options in terms of bringing
charges,” Largen said. “In the past,
when a prosecutor was in the situa
tion of knowing he couldn’t get a con
viction, he would plea bargain the
offense down to a simple assault. ”
In 1974, Michigan completely re
vamped its rape statute, making it a
model for rape law reform around
the country.
The new law defined four degrees
of criminal sexual conduct — from
forcible rape to sexual harassment
and recognized rape as a “crime of
violence, not lust or passion.”
It also simplified the process lead
ing to arrest of a suspect and encour
aged the justice system to “try the
defendants rather than the victims in
sexual assault cases.”
Jeanne Marsh and Nathan Caplan,
two researchers completing a study
of Michigan’s law, said it probably
does not make the “average” woman
safer on the street or in her home.
However, they add, “The average
rapist who commits forcible rape is
now more likely to be reported to the
authorities, arrested, tried, and con
victed of his crime. ”
In New York, the requirement for
a victim to have corroboration of a
rape has been eliminated.
“It was unlike a robbery where, if
someone robbed you on the street
and the victim could make an identi
fication, that was all that was
needed,” said Diana Steele, a lawyer ^
for Women’s Rights Project of the
ACLU.
“Now, ” she said, “the new law has
taken away some of the mystique of
rape and treated it like any other
crime.”
Leigh Bienen, a New Jersey
lawyer writing a book on new rape
laws, says a primary goal of reform is
to redefine the offense “in terms of
acts and circumstances rather than
the conduct or state of mind of the
victim.”
Some states have passed laws re
quiring emergency room treatment
of rape victims and forbidding hos
pitals from turning away rape vic
tims, Bienen said.
She said three states — New
Jersey, Nebraska and Oregon — no
longer exempt spouses from rape
laws. Others have made it easier for a
person to bring rape charges against
a spouse if the couple is living apart.
In October, a Maryland court
overturned a rape conviction on the
grounds the victim had not resisted
enough.
Career Opportunities
Exploring for Energy
We need individuals with degrees in the physical sciences — E.E., M.E., E.E.T.,
engineering science, physics, geophysical engineering — and a spirit of innovation
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Birdwell is an important division of Seismograph Service Corporation whose world
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We need field service engineer trainees to help meet our expansion plans.
If you have the education, initiative, and are willing to work and travel . . . you can
expect the same opportunities for advancement realized by many of our executives.
Our work is not easy. But it is always challenging!
We will be on campus for interviews
February 28, 1980
Contact your placement office for appointment
'l
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yourself. Box 1590, Tulsa, Okla.74102. (918) 627-3330. Equal opportunity employer.
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THE BATTALION
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1980
Page l
Peace Corps volunteers
help with food production
■f
By SCOT K. MEYER
Campus Reporter
Joining the Peace Corps is not just
something you can do to help other
people, it is something you can do to
help yourself, Peace Corps volun
teers told agricultural students at a
brown bag seminar Friday.
“In terms of getting and giving,
you give very little and get a lot,”
said Hedi Naouali, a Texas A&M
University graduate who has been
working for the Peace Corps for IVa
years.
Naouali, a Tunisian who gradu
ated from Texas A&M in 1971, went
on to become Minister of Agriculture
for his country. He is currently on
loan to the Peace Corps, and is tour
ing American campuses looking for
students interested in serving as
agricultural technicians.
Naouali said that the Peace Corps
used to send mostly liberal arts ma
jors abroad, to teach the people to
speak English. But now the Peace
Corps has decided to focus on food
production, which is why technical
advisers in agricultural fields in
creased.
Naouali said the technicians work
through an experimental agricultural
extension service, and help the local
farmers “slowly and easily” to learn
modem farming techniques.
Farmers cannot be expected to
change overnight, Naouali said.
“You can’t just tell a farmer that he
needs to put $500 worth of fertilizer
on his fields, because for one thing
he has been farming for a long time
and doing things a certain way, and
for another thing he doesn’t even
have $500 to spend.
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“So you get his trust and convince
him to perhaps spend $50 on fertiliz
er, and if he notices some slight im
provement then the next time he will
use a little bit more,” Naouali said.
Getting to know “the realities of
the situation” is one of the benefits
Naouali said Peace Corps volunteers
receive. Naouali said that the ability
to learn to work within contraints is a
marketable skill.
“So many American companies
are looking for technicians, and they
just don’t find them. These com
panies are looking for people who
have overseas experience, and who
can speak another language,”
Naouali said.
Naouali said a person getting out
of the Peace Corps will have the ex
perience needed to get a good job.
“It’s not just sacrifice, ” Naouali said.
Another speaker at the seminar
was Mylen Bohle, an American who
has been working with Peace Corps/
Tunisia. Bohle graduated from Mon
tana State University in 1975, and
decided in 1978 to join Peace Corps.
Bohle said he has been working in
a small village of about 200 people in
central Tunisia. He has been primar
ily concerned with convincing far
mers there to grow more barley and
less wheat, in order to make better
use of the limited water supplies. 1
Bohle said that one of the mos
important aspects of his work wit!
the Peace Corps has been the socia ;
experience; drinking tea with far
mers, meeting their children anc !
grandchildren, and just talking with
people. 'I
“Americans don’t know what the
rest of the world is like, and the resl
of the world doesn’t know whai
Americans are like,” Bohle said.
“This has been the main cause oi
many of our country’s problems ol
late, and the Peace Corps could be a I
solution.”
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