features
360 Party Bus keeps the good times rolling
■ see page 3
Sports
Bulldogs lose toFurman after close match
■ see page 4
Campus
Campus Life sponsors tournaments
■ see page 7
:el\
IS as I
rob-1
em-l
oni I
em-l
into I
said I
B
ner
i,'i,-
.SERMNG THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT ASHEVILLE SINCE 1982
Volume 40 Issue 5
eak-
pro-l
Inews
^BRIEFS
r75p
saidfty Matthew Beardsley
;ouil Staff Reporter
CRIME
iampus Police foiled the plans
,/ould-be partiers in Mills Hall
■ responding to complaints from
ising staff last Tuesday. Two of
le six students present voluntarily
landed over small amounts of mari-
5na and a glass pipe, according to
a^NCA police report.
jAllison Gaines and Sara Gaddis,
lOtli freshmen, were given student
:6hduct citations for possession of
narijuana. Gaines was also charged
ivJth possession of drug parapher-
lalin Police also gave citations to
the other students included for us-
ne fake l.D.s and drugs.
ISHEVILLE
|U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine
1.10 announced in Asheville last
Ifck a $10 million grant to help
usi nesses rebuild following flood
lage from Hurricanes Ivan and
-■ranees. The grant is also planned
ho'help employees who have lost
ifir place of employment in the
gel
pro-
:n at
orate
aiK
lec-
:ovei
and
libel
have
rded
tion.
berk
I the
vent
, we
start
sand
pent
ook-
was
said
r, at-
sci
ssor,
nces
stu-
thai
peri-
nwe
t to
'hen
ante
ictu-
TOOI
n be
dfot
in i
very
cane
land
Her.
nces
have
vhat
;ady
Ige'
■an-
;,ac-
inONAL
JPolls for the upcoming presiden-
ial election show both candidates,
rge W. Bush and John Kerry,
irly even. With five weeks re-
Eiining, Bush continues to pro
mote his roll as “Defender in
[Chief,” while Kerry’s campaign has
ibed Iraq as being in a “State
of Crisis.”
'Police in Houston, Texas, report
that a teenager used a sword to kill
his neighbor, according to the AP.
18-year-old Jose Alberto Martinez
was charged with murder and ag-
^vated assault following the attack
last Friday. CNN reported that “the
two were drinking together when
the argument started, and Martinez
jBegedly stabbed [Gabriel Flores]
is^eral times before striking Flores’
mother.”
■ A test pilot took a privately-built
Hcket past the edge of the atmo
sphere September 29, completing
die first stage of a quest to win a
$10 million prize. The X-Prize
Foundation, based out of Saint-
Louis, issued the challenge in order
to inspire an age of pubic space ex
ploration.
Space Ship One rolled almost
uncontrollably toward space at
nearly three times the speed of
sound, and reached an altitude of
64 miles over the Mojave Desert,
. Jmpleting the first leg of the multi-
■illion dollar challenge.
L
1ti
if cor
WWW. unca. edulhanner
Bush and Kerry
go head-to-head
by Sarah Schmidt
Staff Reporter
The Bush and Kerry campaigns
for the presidency continued this
week as the candidates criss
crossed the country on campaigns
and criticized each other’s policies
and records.
“My opponent is sending
mixed signals,” said President
Bush. “He has had many differ
ent positions on Iraq. You cannot
lead the war against terror if you
wilt or waver when things get
tough.”
The debate between Bush and
Kerry over the Iraq war resurfaced
as Iraq’s interim
prime minister
Ayad Allawi
came to the
United States to
appeal to the
United Nations
for international
help in stabiliz
ing the Iraqi re
public.
“(Bush)
blundered say
ing there are
only a handful
of terrorists in
Iraq,” said Sena-
“The invasion of Iraq was
a profound diversion
from the battle against
our greatest enemy, al-
Qaida. Yet, in the face of
all these judgments, all
these misjudgments..., the
president still says he
wouldn’t do anything
different.”
John Kerry
presidential candidate
questioned his credibility,’ said
Bush. “This brave man came to
talk about how he’s risking his life
for a free Iraq, which helps
America, and Senator Kerry held
a press conference and questioned
Prime Minister Allawi’s credibil-
ity.”
Other issues surfaced this week,
including the draft and the bud
get plans of both candidates. Kerry
said that Bush had a covert plan
to call up more National Guard
and Reserve troops after the elec
tion, according to the Associated
Press.
“He won’t tell us what congres
sional leaders are now saying, that
this administration is planning yet
another substan-
_________ tial call-up of re
servists
tor Kerry.
“George Bush retreated from
Fallujah and other communities in
Iraq, which are now overrun with
terrorists and threaten our troops.
“The invasion of Iraq was a
profound diversion from the
battle against our greatest enemy,
al-Qaida. Yet, in the face of all
these judgments, all these mis
judgments, all the miscalculations,
and all the mistakes, the president
still says he wouldn’t do anything
different.”
Kerry accused Allawi of gloss
ing over problems in Iraq after
Allawi delivered an optimistic re
port on the progress of the coun
try. Bush responded in defense of
Allawi and his report, according
to Reuters.
“You can’t lead this country if
your ally in Iraq feels like you
and
Guard units im
mediately after
the election,”
said Kerry. “Hide
it from the
people during
the election, then
make the move.”
The Bush
campaign denied
Kerry’s allega
tions, according
to the AP. Kerry’s
“conspiracy
theory...is com
pletely irresponsible,” said Steve
Schmidt, Bush campaign spokes
man. “John Kerry didn’t launch
this attack when he spoke to the
National Guard because he knows
they know it is false and ridicu
lous.”
The Gommission on Presiden
tial Debates set three dates for
Bush and Kerry to participate in
televised debates. The first debate
is set for Sept. 30 at Washington
University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Time Magazine's most recent
poll taken on Sept. 24 showed a
48-42 percent lead for Bush over
Kerry, with Independent Ralph
Nader bringing in five percent.
Nader is currently fighting several
legal battles to be put on the vot-
See election on page 12
PHOTO courtesy OF WWW.GEORGEWBUSH.COM
President Bush and Senator Kerry continue their campaign
trails in hopes of winning over a younger crowd.
PHOTO COURTESY OF WWWJOHNKERRY.COM
Terrorists seige school leaving
n
IRNATIONAL
The pice of oil, which reached a
,xord high of $50.47 per barrel,
propped by $1.50 upon the arrival
rf news that Nigerian rebel leader
Mujahid Dokubo-Asari had come
to a cease-fire agreement with the
Nigerian government.
Prices rose recently because of
insurgency’s threat to attack the
elta, producer of 2.3 million bar-
Js a day. The overactive hurricane
iason also affected oil production
iti past weeks, hindering production
of oil for OPEC in the Gulf of
Mexico.
Haiti is in a state of devastation
following intense damage from
Hurricane Jeanne.
by Sean Robinson
Staff Reporter
More than 200 students, teach
ers and parents died in a Sept. 3
hostage situation in Moscow, qn
event that some UNCA students
did not, until recently, know
about.
A British Broadcast Company
report reconfirmed, through a key
negotiator in the Beslan school
shooting of Sept. 3, that armed ci
vilians who fired on the school
ultimately caused the hostage
slaughter that ended the tragic
conflict in Russia.
The student body reacted to
news of this story with sadness for
the tragedy and with disdain for
the media that, they say, left them
largely uninformed.
BRIAN DAVIS/staff photographer
Elodie Lecanu and Chad Pearson discuss the media’s role in
informing the public about the Russian school attack.
“The media did not do a very
good job covering the story, said
Christopher Kiley, undeclared
freshman. “I think they’re too
caught up in our own problems
and our own situations with the
war. It is important that the elec
tion is this year in November, but
I think that they need to focus on
world events, such as 200-plus
200 dead
people getting killed in Russia.”
Other students agreed that cov
erage of the Russian tragedy was
not up to par and some took their
comments a step further, indict
ing the media for engagement of
corporate politics, a policy that
Cyrus Atkins says is to the detri
ment of our First Amendment
right to free speech.
“I think it’s a shame that our
freedom of speech is so easily pre
sumed,” said Cyrus Atkins, unde
clared junior. “If public stations
can be so overwhelmed by corpo
rate stations, then it’s not so much
that you don’t have the right to say
something, but it’s more like when
you do say something, no one’s go
ing to listen.”
See RUSSIA on page 12
September 30, 2004
Bush
tightens
embargo
on Cuba
by Angele Mainhart
Staff Reporter
The Bush administration tight
ened the embargo on Cuba, which
reduces the amount of money and
visitors from the United States to
Cuba, in order to push out Fidel
Castro and bring in democracy.
“I think it’s way past midnight
for Fidel Castro,” said Gretchen
Trautmann, assistant professor of
Spanish and chair of the foreign
languages department at UNCA. “I
think it’s time for him to go, and I
think, in a paradoxical way, the em
bargo promotes and glorifies his
stance there as the guy who could
stand up to the big bully.”
The tightening of the embargo
resulted in restricting student visas
for those wanting to study abroad
in Cuba. This shut down programs
in UNCA that sent students to
Cuba in the past.
“The U.S. government policy
has forced a temporary suspension
on the academic programs in Ha
vana, Cuba,” said Pete Williams,
director of the study abroad pro
gram. “In the past, we have had stu
dents that have gone to Cuba on
this program through the Center
for Cross Cultural Studies, and, be
cause of the suspension of the pro
gram, we no longer have that op
tion available to students.
“The students that have gone
with the program have had a very
worthwhile experience, and I’m sad
to see that they no longer have that
opportunity.”
UNCA is not the only univer
sity that is restricted by the em
bargo. The study abroad programs
are too similar to tourism, accord
ing to the new regulations, and this
caused programs that ran for over
seven years to be temporarily shut
down.
“There was sort of a warming
up, and more and more study
abroad programs and academic vi
sas were being offered for North
Americans to study in Cuba,” said
Trautmann. “We had discussed and
were eager to promote taking a class
there hopefully next summer. There
has been a tightening of that. The
Bush administration has claimed
that it’s really just tourism in dis-
guise.
“They have revoked most or all
of the academic visas, including
ones for the established programs.
Oregon had a program running in
■ Cuba for seven or eight years, and,
for the first time, they are not go
ing to be able to go back. So, visas
are no longer being issued as far as
that’s concerned.”
The embargo allows some of the
same consequences of a war or
other form of political tactic. It
keeps the country from gaining
strength economically, while not
dealing with a physical battle.
“It’s a measure from the U.S. to
sort of antagonize the economic
See CUBA on page 12