Monday, April 26, 1999

THE POST

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THE POST
[NATO]

Pablo Matinez Monsivais/AP<
Sava Nin Kovic, center, of Windsor, Ontario, takes part in an anti-NATO demonstration in Lafayette Park across from the White House. The demonstration occurred Saturday as the NATO 50th anniversary summit was taking place nearby.

Venezuela receives new constitution for voters

CARACAS, Venezuela - The centerpiece of President Hugo Chavez's agenda for a "social revolution" in Venezuela - his proposal for a new constitution - went before the people yesterday in a nationwide referendum.

Some 11 million Venezuelans were eligible to vote on whether to form an assembly to rewrite the constitution and whether to approve the terms Chavez has laid out for electing the assembly's members.

Polls opened on schedule yesterday, but lines were short and voters appeared to be staying away. Still, Chavez is highly popular - his approval ratings top 80 percent - and the measure was expected to pass.

Chavez's opponents fear he will use a new constitution to install an authoritarian regime. But the president contends the change is needed to overhaul a corrupt political system that has impoverished most of Venezuela's people.

"It's about the country's challenge to bring legitimacy to the democratic process and to reclaim the essence of what a democracy should be, generating security and justice for the people," he said moments before casting his ballot amid a throng of admirers.

A former army paratrooper who staged a bloody coup attempt in 1992, Chavez has alarmed the political opposition by saying the proposed assembly also should dissolve Congress and the Supreme Court.

Many scholars say Venezuela's 1961 constitution could be reformed without a costly and time-consuming constituent assembly. The country has had 25 constitutions since 1811, and some of Chavez's opponents believe adopting number 26 will do little to address Venezuela's fundamental malaise.

But the proposed writ has come to symbolize Chavez's vow to shake up a system that most Venezuelans believe has failed them.

The president said he wants to break the traditional parties' stranglehold on public institutions and make them more representative.

Critics fear that debilitating Venezuela's old power brokers will only lead to more power for Chavez, who has said that among other things, the proposed assembly should extend his term to up to 14 years. It wasn't clear if Chavez forces would control the assembly, which would be elected in July.

While taking his oath of office Feb. 2, Chavez stunned Venezuelans by labeling the current constitution "moribund." He then called for the dissolution of the other two branches of government, threatened to declare a state of emergency and rule by decree and instituted a plan to increase the role of the army in society.

"The whole world knows that, despite what the president says and thinks, his is a government with an undeniably totalitarian slant," wrote Luis Pinerua, the interior minister under former President Carlos Andres Perez, whom Chavez tried to overthrow seven years ago.

Chavez and the Supreme Court have been locked in a power struggle over his proposal to revamp the constitution. After the court ruled that the proposed assembly would not have the authority to dissolve Congress and the judiciary, Chavez called the ruling irrelevant.

"It would be like me decreeing the sun won't rise in the morning," he said last week.
Doves, flowers honor 13 victims from shooting

LITTLETON, Colo. - Thirteen white doves fluttered in the slate gray sky yesterday over the heads of 70,000 people who filled a parking lot to mourn the 12 students and one teacher massacred at Columbine High School.

Families, friends and strangers clung to each other during a 75-minute memorial service. They clutched flowers, blue and silver balloons and Bibles as they wept and wondered why it happened.

"All of us must change our lives to honor these children," Vice President Al Gore told the overflow crowd a few blocks from where two teen-agers went on a rampage and then killed themselves Tuesday. "More than ever, I realize every one of us is responsible for all of the children.

As Gov. Bill Owens read the name of each of the 13 victims, a dove was released. The symbol of peace had a special meaning: Columbine, Colorado's state flower, derives from a Latin word meaning "like a dove."

"God grant them eternal peace," Owens said of the victims.

Mourners - twice as many as had been expected - stood in rapt attention as Gore described how children must be raised.

He never mentioned by name the two classmates, seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who went on the rampage and tried to blow up the high school apparently because they felt like rejected misfits.

Investigators have found a diary plotting the mayhem in precise detail for more than a year as well as bomb-making materials and weapons in one of the pair's bedroom.

"I would be misleading you if I said I understand this. I don't know why human beings do evil," Gore said.

Gore and retired Gen. Colin Powell led an array of dignitaries surrounding the makeshift stage in the movie theater parking lot.

Other dignitaries included U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard and most of the state's congressional delegation, state officials, and the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham.

Mourners of all ages began arriving four hours before the service. For some, it was the second or third vigil they had attended since Tuesday's rampage. Many were Columbine High School alumni. One student painted a heart over his face in Columbine blue.

Four F-16 fighter jets from the Colorado National Guard zoomed overhead, led by Columbine graduate Capt. Scott VanBek. A private plane trailed a banner overhead reading: "Our love and prayers are with you."

The growing crowd was a swarm of dark winter parkas splotched with bright floral bouquets. Florists donated 25,000 bouquets of white and orange lilies, yellow sunflowers and daisies, pink carnations and roses of all hues.

Deputies suspended their investigation and media briefings for the day, concentrating instead on directing traffic for the service.

Slowly, life in Littleton is returning to normal, even as memorials and investigations continue.

Jefferson County school officials said Columbine's 1,800 students would return to classes Thursday at Chatfield High School, a few miles south. They said Columbine's graduation ceremony will be held May 22 at Fiddler's Green, a large suburban amphitheater normally used for rock concerts and dance performances.

Residents question killers' family background

LITTLETON, Colo. - Their friends portray them as the people next door: parents who attended Little League games, took their sons swimming and fishing, planned family trips and enjoyed the quiet of suburbia - until now.

The parents of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, whose murderous rampage Tuesday at Columbine High School left 15 dead, have dropped from sight, leaving friends to answer a haunting question that looms in this tragedy: Did the parents turn a blind eye to warning signs their sons were deeply troubled?

Friends of the two couples say what is extraordinary about the two families is how very ordinary they are: quiet people who celebrated Easters with neighbors, mowed their lawns, played hoops with their sons, sat on bleachers on long summer nights watching Little League.

"They raised their boys just like the rest of us," said Vicki Dehoff, a former neighbor of the Klebolds, who has known the family for 15 years. "The parents are not monsters."

But others have wondered how the parents missed so many red flags: The boys' admiration for Hitler. Their obsession with violent video games. Harris' venomous messages on the Internet, prompting one classmate's father to contact police last year after Eric allegedly urged others to kill his son.

And, of course, the boys' stockpiling of an arsenal, including semi-automatic guns, grenades and materials to make some 30 bombs.

"I think I would be a little concerned about my son's room if I went in there and I found a sawed-off shotgun barrel ... sitting out there," on the dresser, Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone said Saturday, referring to what police found in one boy's home. Bomb-making materials, he added, also were in sight.

"A lot of this stuff was clearly visible. The parents should have known," Stone added. "I think parents should be accountable for their kids' actions."

Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, on

Asked if parents should be liable if their children have guns, Attorney General Janet Reno said on NBC's
  • Meet the Press
  • it's important to "identify who is responsible for them having guns - what they knew or should have known and take appropriate steps."
What the parents did know and when they knew it remains a mystery.

They have said nothing beyond written statements, including one Saturday from the Klebolds, saying they held a service for their son "who we loved as much as we knew how to love a child."

There was no hint of family trouble years ago in the Klebold household, Dehoff said.

John Horan, a funeral director who has buried some of the slain teens, said people should think twice before pointing fingers.

"I started out feeling angry toward the parents until I realized I know one of the parents," said Horan, who knows Susan Klebold. "It was kind of a wake-up call about being careful not to judge someone too quickly."

Nevada resort to include new shooting range

FRONT SIGHT, Nev. - In the midst of simmering desert, in a town yet to be, Ignatius Piazza envisions a gated community that will offer residents not golf courses, not swimming pools, but an array of 13 shooting ranges.

Its name is Front Sight. Call it home on the range.

The 550-acre, master-planned community, straddling two counties whose planners already have given their approval, will offer prospective buyers 177 one-acre custom-home lots and 350 townhomes.

Front Sight will have its own community center, school and landing strip - at a cost of almost $25 million.

Plus, of course, the handy gun ranges to fire off a few rounds.

"It's the Pebble Beach of firearms training," Piazza boasts, wearing the Front Sight uniform of navy fatigues and black boots.

Piazza insists he and others involved in the project are not affiliated with any militia group. He says most of the students who have taken his classes here or in Bakersfield, Calif., are professionals, law enforcement officers and housewives.

And he understands that just the concept of Front Sight will offend some people after Tuesday's massacre in Littleton, Colo., where two high school students used a semi-automatic rifle, two sawed-off shotguns, a pistol and homemade bombs to kill 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.

But he maintains that a familiarity with guns, Front Sight's goal, could have reduced the bloodshed at Columbine High School.

"Had any of the adults in Colorado at the school been armed with a concealed weapon, it would not have been a six-hour siege by two very disturbed individuals," he says. "The problem would have been handled immediately. Lives would have been saved."

In fact, Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy Neil Gardner, assigned full-time to Columbine High, exchanged gunfire with the attackers early in the assault and radioed for backup.

For now, the planned community is just a maze of gravel and dust with some tents to hold classes, which have drawn 2,000 students since they began in January. The site, roughly halfway between Death Valley and Las Vegas, as yet has neither water nor power.

Piazza has developed the Front Sight project with Las Vegas engineer David Dwyer and says he has several investors. Local government is treating it just like any other new development.

''Our planning commissioners are in support of it,'' says Tom Riley, Nye County planning commissioner. ''They don't have any real concerns with it. ... Instead of the 19th hole, they've got the bullet hole.''

Not everyone is amused. A proponent of gun control called Piazza's community ''a scary idea.''

''I am frightened by these isolationists and gun-fanatic people who want to commune together and promote a life that focuses on guns,'' says Eric Gorovitz, legal director for the Trauma Foundation in San Francisco.

Lots in the gun-oriented, gated community aren't for sale; they are an added benefit of purchasing a membership. The $200,000 platinum membership entitles a person to gun-training classes and a lot. Other memberships include classes but no living space.

Piazza said 25 platinum memberships already have been sold.

Only half Ohio's children receive health insurance

TOLEDO - Ohio has provided health insurance to only half of Ohio's eligible uninsured children since a program for working-poor families began a year ago, The Blade reported.

About 52,000 children are insured while 52,000 more have been enrolled at some point and dropped out of the program, the newspaper said yesterday.

The federal government had expected Ohio to have insured 133,000 eligible children by June 30.

Congress authorized $24 billion over five years to help states expand health insurance to children whose families earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but can't afford private coverage. The federal and state partnership is called the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP.

Barbara Edwards, Ohio's deputy director for Medicaid, said Ohio officials are "feeling good" about CHIP.

As many as 75,000 more Ohio children have some form of health insurance than a year ago, she said. If their family income falls at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level -$25,050 for a family of four- they are insured through CHIP. If their family income is lower, they're insured through Medicaid's Healthy Start program.

Lucas County appears to have fared better than the state, though officials can't say why. The county signed up 4,335 out of 4,869 who were eligible.

Ohio reports a net increase of about 1,000 children a month. Edwards credits a direct-mail campaign to families in the Women and Infant Children program and work with school nurses, Head Start and day-care programs.

Bill might make Medicare pay for clinical trials

COLUMBUS - Doctors at two of Ohio's leading research hospitals are hoping Congress will approve legislation that would make Medicare pay for routine fees associated with clinical trials.

The trials allow patients to receive state-of-the-art therapies and give doctors evidence of a drug's effectiveness. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires years of trials before approving a drug.

"We are where we are with cancer because of patients who participate in clinical trials," said Dr. Michael Caligiuri, associate director of clinical research for the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University. "The fewer the patients, the slower the cure for cancer."

Clinical trials probably are least accessible to Medicare patients, who, because of their age, are at greater risk for cancer and often can't afford to participate, according to the American Cancer Society.

About 61 percent of the cancer cases diagnosed this year in the United States will affect people 65 or older. Yet only 1.5 percent of study participants are from that age group.

The bill is being introduced as Congress also is considering an increase in research money for the National Cancer Institute, which is sponsoring more than 1,700 trials nationwide, including 360 in Ohio.

Researchers say it's one thing to pay for research and another to ensure cancer patients - especially senior citizens - have access to studies.

Because most patients depend on health insurance to cover their expenses, the insurance ends up dictating their care.

Researchers say this approach makes testing new drugs and therapies difficult, because some health plans don't cover the costs.

The James Hospital has more than 200 clinical trials under way. Some are privately funded and others are government-sponsored.

About half of the studies have enough patients, but the others have shut down or will do so for lack of participation.

Some patients cannot participate in trials because they already have received treatment that would disqualify them, Caligiuri said. But many others don't enroll because of the cost.

"Most people actually want to participate in clinical trials," he said.

Caligiuri said the Medicare bill, if approved, would be a good start.

"Patients need to understand that their insurance companies won't allow them to go to another institution that has exciting clinical trials," he said.

"They need to complain in the strongest of terms."

Kasich cancels Athens visit for fundraiser at OU Inn

Presidential hopeful U.S. Rep. John Kasich, R-Westerville, canceled his Athens County fund-raiser scheduled for today at the Ohio University Inn.

Kasich planned to have the fund-raiser at the OU Inn from 4 to 6 p.m. before he travelled to Marietta for the Washington County Republican Party Annual Spring Dinner.

Kasich still plans to attend the Marietta event where he will appear as a guest speaker, said Duke Hipp, deputy communications director for Kasich 2000.

"His schedule for Iowa (over the) weekend is pretty packed," Hipp said. "The Athens event will get bumped because of another event."

Kasich 2000 is the committee Kasich announced Feb. 15 to explore his chances at a presidential bid and help raise money for the effort.

He still might visit Athens County before the primary elections although no events have been scheduled, Hipp said.

Tod Bowen, finance director for the Kasich 2000 Ohio office, said the committee contacted anyone who had purchased tickets for the event. Some refunds were given but most people bought tickets in support of the campaign, he said.

Ellsworth Holden, chairman of the Athens County Republican Party, said he has not heard of any other Athens events at which Kasich might appear.



Stickers show environmental law compliance

Ohio Director of Commerce Gary C. Suhadolnik announced April 14 that the Green Buckeye Award program will continue. The Green Buckeye Award is a sticker placed on gas pumps to help consumers identify gas stations that have complied with environmental laws covering underground storage tanks.

The new Green Buckeye Award stickers are for 1999 and 2000, which will replace the 1997/1998 stickers issued when the program first started in August 1997. To receive a sticker, all tanks at a gas station must meet 1998 tank standards, including spill, overfill and corrosion protection, as well as use an approved method of leak detection. Additionally, proper corrective action steps must be taken for any current releases at the facility.

"The Green Buckeye sticker helps to make consumers aware of gas stations that comply with state and federal underground storage tank laws," Suhadolnik said in a news release. "Environmentally conscientious consumers will have a readily identifiable sticker to look for when they pull up next to a gas pump."




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