camp us Career Weeik wraps up with mountainslimber's speech
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UNC hikes fees to cover scholarships, athletics
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Blue Devils dominate Hokies with inside-outside attack
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ine Chronicle 1 100th Anniversary
MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 2005
THE INDEPENDENT DAILY AT DUKE UNIVERSITY
IRAQIS CAST VOTES by
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ONE HUNDREDTH YEAR, ISSUE 84
Digital divide Students complain on-campus cable fails
to
satisfy
Murder suspect
indicted Robbery may have motivated Duke employee's death
Sally Buzbee
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq Iraqis embraced democracy in large numbers Sunday, standing in long lines to vote in defiance of mortar attacks, suicide bombers and boycott calls. Pushed in wheelchairs or carts if they couldn’t walk, the elderly, the young and women in veils cast ballots in Iraq’s first free election in a half-century. “We broke a barrier of fear,” said Mijm Towirish, an election official. Uncertain Sunni turnout, a string of insurgent attacks that killed 44 and the crash of a British military plane drove home that chaos in Iraq isn’t over yet. Yet the mere fact the vote went off seemed to ricochet instandy around a world hoping for Arab democracy and fearing Islamic extremism. “I am doing this because I love my country, and I love the sons of my nation,” said Shamal Hekeib, 53, who walked with his wife 20 minutes to a polling station near his Baghdad home. ‘We are Arabs, we are not scared and we are not cowards,” Hekeib said. With helicopters flying low and gunfire
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Emily Almas THE CHRONICLE
by
Indictments handed down recendy by a grand jury in the murder of Duke employee Curt Blackman allege that suspect Thomas An thony Pitt pawned electronic equipment
from Blackm a n
apartment and that
robbery by
Issa Hanna
THE CHRONICLE
When juniors Yousef Mian and Andy Kanderian purchased the centerpiece of their West Campus dorm room—a 51-inch HDTV television—their expectations were high. ‘We had been saving up for a while,” Mian said. “It was about $6OO a person.” But when the Keohane Quadrangle residents wired their gargantuan screen for Duke Television, the Universi-
ty’s cable service, they suddenly knew no emotion but disappointment. Mian said the sheer size of his screen magnifies flaws in DTV’s cable feed, making the image difficult to view. ‘We didn’t expect the cable to be this bad,” Mian said. ‘There’s something flickering across the screen constantly.” David Menzies, marketing manager for the Office of Information Technology, said Mian’s problem can be attrib-
Any student from the graduprofessional schools was eligible to apply for the position, but Julia Bowsher, a fifthyear student in biology and chair of the committee, declined to reveal how many applications were received. She said the committee looked for candidates’ well-roundedness and University involvement as primary factors. “They’re not supposed to serve as a direct representative of our constituents. They’re supposed to look out for the interests of the University in general,” Bowsher said. Each applicant had to answer a series of essay questions,
may have been a motive in the brutal slaying Blackman, coordinator for graduate recruitment and minority programs at Duke, was found by police May 20 in his Hilton Street apartment after failing to show up for work for two days. When officers arrived at the scene they found the 38year-old face down on his bedroom floor, gagged, blindfolded and bound at his ankles and wrists. According to Blackman’s autopsy report from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill, he had been stabbed 30 times, including nine stab wounds to his neck. New indictments allege that the electronics Pitt bartered at Cash Converter, a pawn shop in Durham’s Oxford Commons Shopping Center, belonged to Blackman. Pitt had worked at a nearby Burger King restaurant and was arrested without incident inside the Wal-Mart located at Oxford Commons by the Durham Police Department June 4. Pitt confessed to killing Blackman, a Durham County prosecutor said at a June bail hearing. The murder indictment, signed by a grand jury Jan. 18, alleges Pitt killed Blackman May 18 “unlawfully, willfully and feloniously and of malice aforethought.” The indict-
SEE TRUSTEES ON PAGE 6
SEE INDICTMENT ON PAGE 5
uted to any number of things, such as a faulty cable connection, an amplifier in need ofadjustment or the presence of a video game adapter. He also said DTV is in compliance with the same FCC regulations that all commercial cable companies follow. “Larger TVs have the general tendency to show more graininess than smaller sets due to the expansion of video SEE TV ON PAGE 5
SEE IRAQ ON PAGE 6
Grad student trustee candidates advance by
Collin Anderson THE CHRONICLE
Five graduate and professional students were selected Saturday as semifinalists to become the next Young Trustee to represent the graduate and professional students on the Board of Trustees, the University’s ultimate governing body. The Young Trustee Screening Committee selected the semifinalists. After a round of interviews—which will take place Feb. s—the seven-member committee will select three finalists to speak before the full Graduateand Professional Student Council. The Assembly will elect one of the finalists to serve as Young Trustee by a majority vote at its meeting Feb. 21.
ate or