07 12 2006

Page 1

LORDS OF THE RING

THE UNSUNG RENEWED

Hays County Civic Center plays home to the return of professional boxing in San Marcos

Slaid Cleaves covers his personal favorite songs at an intimate local concert

SEE SPORTS, PAGE 12

SEE TRENDS, PAGE 5

TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY SAN MARCOS

www.UniversityStar.com

JULY 12, 2006

Education a must for online security Predators lurk in all corners of Internet, not only Myspace By Nick Georgiou The University Star Recent Myspace security measures have come under scrutiny after a 14-year-old Hays County girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by a man whom she met through the popular social networking Website. The girl’s family cited negligence and — Katie Canton fraud on the part teen ambassador to Web of Myspace and its Wise Kids media conglomerate owner, News Corporation, and filed a lawsuit on June 19 against the company for $30 million. “Myspace has knowingly and purposely placed corporate greed over the health and safety of young underage Myspace users,” Carl Barry and Adam Loewy, the family’s attorneys, said in their petition. “In essence, Myspace has created this sort of animal and they have done nothing to regulate it,” Barry said. The day after the petition was filed, Myspace increased its security measures. “Already they knew they could do more but they didn’t,” Barry said. Myspace would not comment on the lawsuit, but their Chief Security Officer, Hemanshu Nigam, said in a statement that Myspace is committed to Internet safety. He said they take “aggressive measures” to protect their members and that, “ultimately, Internet safety is a shared responsibility.” “We encourage everyone on the Internet to engage in smart web practices and have open family dialogue about how to apply offline lessons in the online world,” Nigam said. Barry, however, thinks the only way to stop adults from talking to children on Myspace is to verify a person’s age. He said Myspace is reluctant to institute an age verification system because of what it might to do to their business. Young kids drive the popularity of the Website, he said, and if it is made difficult for young users to get access, “then they can’t make all the money they want to make of off it.” “The real fundamental issue here is this is a lawsuit that’s never, ever been filed anywhere in the U.S., or as far as I know, in the world.” Barry said. “That’s why the lawsuit is somewhat special because it’s involving a technology where there are no laws right now to regulate it.” Amid the numerous reports of Myspace members meeting underage users in person, attorneys general from around the country are pushing the Web site and others like it to institute a more effective age verification system. Currently, a user can enter any age they want to. In a letter to social networking Websites, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said investigators found it “uncomfortably” easy to locate many underage user profiles. Abbot said verifying age via credit card or an e-mail account would be a better system than what is currently used.

“I

t’s one stop shopping for predators. They know everything they need to know to be your best friend.”

See PREDATORS, page 4

WEDNESDAY

VOLUME 96, ISSUE 3

RISING

DANGER Dry weather devastates Texas agriculture David Saleh Rauf The University Star Editor’s Note: This story is the second part of a series on drought conditions and water conservation in South Central Texas. HONDO — As a patch of ominous gray clouds loomed over Hondo, Ken Graff stood in the middle of an arid patch of land, honking his horn and calling his heifers with a loud, high-pitch yelping sound. As the cows emerged from the brush, Graff said ranchers and farmers in the South of Texas need more than just sporadic rain to ease the bone-dry conditions that have ravaged their livelihood for over a year. Recent rainfall has provided only minor relief to drought-stricken regions across Texas, leaving some to look up at the heavens for something greater — divine intervention. “We just got to keep saying our prayers and take what we get,” Graff, part owner and steward of the 7A Ranch in Hondo, said. “The rain gave us some hope but not enough. What we need is a good five, six-inch rain and then next week we need another two, three-inch rain and the next week a couple of inches just to catch up.” Praying for rain to ease the economic impact of drought is nothing new for ranchers and farmers in Texas. The drought cycle of the 1890s was a precursor to the dust bowl era of the 1930s, which affected regions in five states, creating one of the worst disasters in U.S. agricultural history. The drought of the 1950s affected every region of Texas and is still considered the most serious drought to strike Texas in recorded weather history, culminating in the late summer of 1956. “I think where we’re at right now, rainfallwise, we’re worse off now than I’ve ever seen,” Graff, a fifth-generation rancher, said. “We’ve only been in it for one year, but I know a couple of old timers that I very highly respect that say ‘this is just like it was in ’56.’” In recent history, droughts in 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2002 have cost the statewide economy billions in agricultural losses. The current drought afflicting most of the state has once again impacted the agricultural industry tremendously — annual and perennial crops have been devastated, range and pasture conditions decimated and ranchers have been forced to liquidate their herds, resulting in nearly $1.5 billion in losses since April 2005, prompting Gov. Rick Perry to request disaster relief assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency for 24

DEEP IN THOUGHT: Ken Graff, above, co-owner and steward of 7A Ranch in Hondo, watches over his herd on Saturday. Graff, along with other ranchers across Texas, have had to sell off their cows because of the increasing prices of hay brought forth by the drought. A DIVINE MESSAGE: A lone sign off of Highway 90 near Hondo displays the feelings of South Texans who have suffered from the recent drought that has spread across the state.

Aaron Smith/Star photos counties. “It has been a devastating drought,” Gene Hall, public relations spokesperson for the Texas Farm Bureau, said. “It has at one time or another touched virtually every corner of Texas. The situation in many, many parts of the state is critical to desperate.” Winter grazing crops like wheat, oats and rye, Hall said, suffered near total failures in Central Texas. Currently, 60 percent of the states pastures are in very poor conditions and only 1 percent of the state has excellent conditions. “It is a really grim situation for a lot of producers this year,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any question that yes, some will probably be forced out of business as a result of this. There are ranchers in South Texas that are really ranchers in name only because their cattle have long since gone.”

David Anderson, Texas Cooperative Extension livestock marketing economist, said the winter wheat crop in Texas showed huge yield losses during the past year, which directly impacted ranchers and farmers who normally graze cattle on wheat pastures during the winter months. According to the Texas Agricultural Statistics Service, the winter wheat crop is down about 60 percent from last year. “What happened is back in October there was no rain, so the wheat could never even get started. There wasn’t any of that grass to turn the calves onto,” Anderson said. “What happened was farmers and ranchers had to buy feed because there wasn’t any pasture to graze on. They had to buy hay, buy other things such as cottonseed and stuff like that to feed the cows to keep them going into this year.” See AGRICULTURE, page 4

Anthropology students uncover prehistoric artifacts at Aquarena Center By Bradley Childers The University Star

Photo courtesy of Media Relations UNCOVERING THE PAST: Texas State Archaeological Field School students, led by professor Charles Bousman, dig for artifacts during their excavation at Aquarena Springs Center. The excavation was conducted during the month of June.

Today’s Weather

Mostly Sunny 96˚/73˚

Precipitation: 0% Humidity: 58% UV: 10+ Extreme Wind: S 11 mph

This summer, anthropology students in the Archaeological Field School conducted an archaeological excavation at Aquarena Center that uncovered thousands of artifacts, some dating about 7,000 years or older. The excavation took about one month, starting at the beginning of the summer session and ending June 27. The students uncovered approximately 12 projectile points, 12 teeth, 20 bifacial stone tools, six stone cores, a hammerstone, hundreds of burned rocks, more than 50 pieces of bone, a bone tool and thousands of flint and

chert flakes. Before the digging started, the area was tested and proved to have a very high potential for archaeological finds. Standing in the 5-foot deep pit, anthropology graduate student Terrie Simmons was amazed at how rich the site was in artifacts. “You could stand in there and see things coming out of the walls,” Simmons said. “You could just look at the walls going all the way down and you could see burned rocks and flakes or animal bones.” The discovery of these items could lead to a better understanding of prehistoric inhabitants as well as past weather patterns of the area.

Two-day Forecast Thursday Sunny Temp: 93°/ 72° Precipitation: 20%

Friday Isolated T-Storms Temp: 93°/ 72° Precipitation: 30%

Charles Bousman, assistant professor in the department of anthropology and instructor of the Field School, said the discoveries will show how prehistoric people dealt with dramatic climate changes. In previous years, Bousman and his class excavated materials dated to about 5,000 years ago. “This year we started picking up materials that suggest we were going into the big drought that goes from about 7500 (before present) to 4500 called the Altithermal, meaning high temperatures,” Bousman said. “Certainly in the last 100,000 years, it’s the worst, hottest time in North America.” Bousman said in terms of adverse weather, what happened

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then makes hurricane Katrina look like nothing. “Our society has adapted to a very limited range of weather patters,” Bousman said. “If it’s much more extreme than those, we would not be terribly prepared for dealing with it.” With the changing climate came the migration of huntergatherers and the animals which they depended on for survival. Anthropology graduate student Deidra Aery, who was the excavation supervisor for the dig, is writing her thesis on the findings uncovered at Aquarena. “The types of animals present tell us what sort of environment See ARTIFACTS, page 4

To Contact Trinity Building Phone: (512) 245-3487 Fax: (512) 245-3708 www.UniversityStar.com © 2006 The University Star


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