Newspaper Page Text
2 • The Red and Black • Thursday, May 31. 1990
BRIEFLY
■ UNIVERSITY
Campus organizations urged to keep in touch with SA.
The Student Association pawed a proposal Tuesday encouraging
other student organizations to appoint a liaison to SA. The purpose of
the proposal is to increase communication between SA and other
campus groups President Pro Tern William Perry said SA will target
larger, more active campus groups right now. In the fall, all 300
student organizations registered with the University will be
encouraged to appoint liaisons. Carol Ann Whaley was elected by the
SA to fill the junior senator seat left vacant by a recent resignation.
Genera! Committee member applications are now available to all
students at the Tate Student Center information desk
■ STATE
ATLANTA (AP): Car tags snarling crime computers.
Gov. Joe Frank Harr.s expressed concern Wednesday over reports
that criminal investigations are being snarled by Georgia’s slow
system of recording new license tag numbers, but said correcting the
problem may be tco costly. New lags were issued in Georgia this year
:*:r the "rs: time since 1983, but state Revenue Department officials
have said it will take up to five months to input tag information from
the counties, where the lags are sold, into a central information
system. After the new tags issued, some residents traveling out-
rf-state found themselves jailed on stolen car charges when their tags
didn’t show up or. the national law enforcement computer network. In
ad dir. the lack of a central data base is being blamed for delays in
-.me criminal investigations, including the murder of a high school
student in Hazlehurst two weeks ago.
ATLANTA (AP): State unemployment declines to 4.7.
Siate Labor Commissioner Joe Tanner reported Wednesday that
Georgia's unemployment rate declined in April to 4.7 percent, partly
re-cause of new jobs in service industries. The April rate was down
•*r *m. a revised March rate of 4.8 percent and the April 1989 rate of 5.5
remen: Tanner said 2,700 additional jobs became available in
service-related industries last month and the labor force decreased
32,077. While employment dropped by 27,821 jobs, much of that was
“among people not covered under the state’s unemployment
insurance program, and many of these workers left the job market,”
Tanner said. Workers not covered by the program include farm
workers, those who are self-employed and private household workers.
BOSTON (AP): Radical new fetal surgery successful. In
a dramatic but controversial attack on a lethal birth defect, doctors
said they partially removed a fetus, rearranged its internal organs
and returned it to the womb to develop into a normal, healthy baby,
surgery. The surgery was pioneered at the University of California,
San Francisco, to correct fetal diaphragmatic hernia, a severe birth
defect that occurs in about one of every 2,000 babies. During
development, a hole in the fetus’s diaphragm fails to grow shut, and
the stomach, intestines and other organs squeeze into the chest
cavity. As a result, the lungs fail to develop, and the baby is born
unable to breathe. Through an incision in the fetus, doctors put the
misplaced stomach, intestines and other organs back where they
belonged and covered the hole in the diaphragm with a Gore-Tex
patch. Finally they tucked the fetus’s arm back into the womb and
closed the incision.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP): Duke's bill called ‘racist.’A
bill sponsored by former Ku KJux Klan leader David Duke to ban
affirmative action easily passed the Louisiana House, enraging
blacks who called it unconstitutional and a racist political ploy. While
Duke basked in Tuesday’s 65-36 victory, he acknowledged his bill
would have problems “in the liberal Senate.” State Rep. C.D. Jones, a
black caucus member, told reporters Louisiana’ 1.3 million blacks
should be concerned only with the intent of the bill, drafted by a
former Klan grand wizard whose legislative office once sold pro-Nazi
books. “The issue here is the intent of the bill to divide races, the
racist intent to set poor people and blacks back 25 years," Jones said.
‘The House vote sends a signal to the nation that it’s all right to be
racist, all right to be a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, that you
can draw on that experience to be a member of this body. It sends a
signal to corporate America that Louisiana is a place where racism is
alive and well.”
■ WORLD
LIMA, Peru (AP): 5.8 Richter scale quake kills 67. a
powerful earthquake jolted Peru’s northeastern jungle Tuesday,
killing at least 67 people, injuring hundreds and wrecking dozens of
homes, Civil Defense authorities said today. Thirty five of the deaths
Tuesday night occurred in Moyobamba, a town of 50,000 people 400
miles north of Lima, officials said. The other dead were from villages
in nearby jungle areas, they said. The quake measured 5.8 on the
Richter scale, according to the Peruvian Geophysical Institute. The
epicenter was in the jungle 75 miles northeast of Moyobamba. Many
houses and buildings in Moyobamba were destroyed. Electricity and
telephone lines were completely cut in the region. Moyobamba has
few doctors, and authorities there asked the government to send in
medical staff, medicine and generators to help tend to the hundreds of
injured.
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP): Snakes delay bus rescue. A
bus whose passengers included a snake charmer fell into a ditch, and
dozens of people lay trapped for hours because rescuers feared the
snakes had escaped from their basket, a newspaper said Wednesday.
The snake charmer was among the three fatalities in the accident
Tuesday outside Dhaka, the Bengali language newspaper Ittefaq
said. It said the unidentified snake charmer was carrying at least six
snakes in his basket. “The passengers were groaning inside the bus ...
But fear of snakes prevented the people from rescuing them,” Ittefaq
quoted villagers as saying. After about three hours, another snake
cnarmer was called from a neighboring village. He caught three
snakes and said the others had fled. The bus, which was coming to
Dhaka, collided head-on with another bus and fell into a ditch filled
with water.
UGA TODAY
Meetings
• The Minority Business Student
Association will meet tonight at
6:30 at the Tate Student Center
in Room 141.
• The Zoology Club will meet
tonight at 7 at the Biological
Science complex in Room 707-A.
• Alpha Zeta will meet tonight at
7 at Conner Hall in Room 104.
• The Society of Professional
Journalists will meet tonight at 7
at Provino’s.
• Students for Andy Young will
meet tonight at 8:30 at the Tate
Student Center in Room 141. The
public is invited.
Lectures/Seminars
• A seminar titled “How to Take
Tests” will be held today at 5:30
p.m. at Clark Howell Hall in
Room 119. The public is invited.
No preregisteration is necessary.
• A symposium titled “...A
Thousand Words: Four Women
Artists from the Georgia Review"
will be held tonight at 7 at the
Georgia Museum of Art. Paige
Harvey, Mary Jernigan, Mary
Porter, and Katherine Wells will
discuss their work. The public is
invited.
Announcements
• Kappa Delta Pi Honor Society
will hold its Spring Initiation
and Awards Luncheon Saturday,
June 1 at 12 p.m. at the Holiday
Inn in Downtown Athens. All
members, initiates, and their
guests are invited. For
reservations, contact Kay
Damron at 769-6193.
• The Red and Black is accepting
applications for all summer/fall
positions. Applications are avail
able at the Red and Black office,
123 N. Jackson Street and are
due Friday at 5 p.m.
Items for UGA Today must be
submitted in writing at least two
days before the date to be printed.
Include specific meeting location,
speaker’s title and topic, and a
contact person’s day and evening
phone number. Items are printed
on a space available basis.
Because space is limited, long
announcements are shortened.
Bizarre new drug phenomenon
Licking toad brings no prince but does leave aftertaste
By GWINN BRUNS
Contributing Writer
A bizarre new drug phenomenon
is hopping into the nation, and con
cerned people like state Rep. Bev
erly Langford (D-Calhoun) are
quite unnerved about it.
It's toad-licking.
Large, warted toads are being
imported to the United States from
South America to combat various
agricultural pests, and curious
drug-users have found a way to lick
the head of these amphibians and
get high.
Most toads release toxins from
the back of the head as a defense
mechanism against predators.
Howard Hunt, head of the rep
tile division of the Atlanta Zoo,
said he can’t imagine why anyone
would lick the toads. The toxins are
so distasteful most animals avoid
the creatures. He said dogs have
been known to die from biting into
Marine toads.
Marine (or Cane) toad toxins
contain dopamine, which create
similar effects to those in Haitian
voodoo worship, said Dez Craw
ford, publication editor for the Na
tional Reptile Defense Fund. The
toad slime causes a zombie effect,
so worshippers appear dead.
Langford first began research on
these toads with hopes of finding a
cure for the Georgia fire-ant
problem.
However, as research was pro
longed and Langford became con
cerned with toad-licking, he
proposed a resolution to the De
partment of Natural Resources
with hopes that they would con
duct an intense study of the toads.
Considered by many to be a
maverick in the legislature, he ad
mits that his resolution was “origi
nally done as a tongue-in-cheek
sort of thing.”
His resolution has many hu
morous undertones. He describes
the symptoms of those under the
influence of toads to be “bulging,
bloodshot eyes, a green flicking
tongue, and making strange
sounds, not unlike those ema
nating from South Georgia ponds
on summer evenings."
He asked the Department of
Natural Resources to also consider
whether toad-licking should be “a
sex crime as well as a drug crime."
“Of course people thought it was
too facetious, but I was dead se
rious about it," he said.
Langford correlated toad-licking
with sniffing glue. He said no one
thought it was a big deal until
glue-sniffing had already swept the
nation.
The resolution has never
reached the floor for consideration.
However he has hopes that one day
someone will take time to learn
more about this mysterious prac
tice.
University Police Chief Chuck
Horton said he doesn’t see how one
could be charged with a drug of
fense related to toad-licking, when
the toads are already in the United
States.
Chuck Horton: No arrests
for any toad-licking students
He said several students have
been arrested for possession or use
of LSD and ecstasy, which are the
top two drugs on campus, but toad
licking hasn’t yet posed a problem.
‘You’d hope a college education
would prevent something like
that," he said.
■ CORRECTION
An article in Tuesday's edition of The Red and Black contained
incorrect information.
Eugene Odum is the director emeritus of the University’s In
stitute of Ecology.
It is the policy of The Red and Black to correct errors of fact
that appear in its news columns. Corrections usually appear
on page 2.
SUMMER INTERNSHIP
MAKE $5500/SUMMER
5 hours of college credit ♦ Resume/Experience
Qualify for Job Placement Program
Apply in person only at Clarke Howell Room 211
When: June 4, 5, 6 Time: 11-1 p.m. Casual Dress
Calls accepted at 369-7461.
Delta Gamma
Anchor Splash
'lay 31, 1990 l.eglon Cool
6:30 p.m.
To Kenefit Sight Conservation and
Aid to the lllind
COLLEGE
Air Conditioning
Two Beautiful Swimming Pools
Two Lighted Tennis Courts
Weight room and Sauna
2630 Broad St.
(near Shoney's and the
Beechwood Shopping Center)
»On the ATS busline and easily
accessible to all parts of Athens
»Children's Play Area
»Furnished apartments available
r Ad a a Ad Office Hours
548-H48 “ - F 9 5
Sat
Sun
10-5
l -5
