8A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, February 12, 1998
NATION/WORLD
0
Pipe smoking in
Egypt causes
controversy
Missouri man
6
infected 8 women
with AIDS virus
A
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Dice tum-
ble over backgammon boards, cups
slam on wooden tables and the thick
smoke from a gurgling water pipe
wafts into the nighttime air.
What's that peeking from behind
the swelling smoke? Lipstick? Long
hair? Painted nails?
To the chagrin of many Egyptian
men, women have taken up the
water pipe, long a tradition that
was the most masculine of male
habits, puffed in the thousands of
cafes that serve as the hub of men's
social life in the Arab world's
biggest and most spirited city.
"In my opinion, it is sacrilege,"
declares Ahmed Sadiq, a waiter at a
cafe coated with a generation of
grime. "If women sit here, it's not
natural. It goes against the nature
of Egyptians."
In Cairo, there are cafes for the
deaf, there are cafes for literati, and
there are cafes for chess players.
There are all-night cafes, and there
are cafes where Cairenes run their
daily affairs.
For centuries, in those cafes, it was
a man's world.
And in that world was the smoke of
the water pipe, known alternatively as
the shisha, nedjilla, arkila, qalyan or
hooka. All share the distinctive loop-
ing hose that draws the smoke of
burning, syrupy tobacco through
water and into waiting lungs.
But recently, the shisha and the
style of smoking it has experienced a
transformation, making it, well, more
feminine.
Once one of the easier ways to
catch hepatitis, the shisha now comes
with a removable plastic mouthpiece
known as a mabsam.
Even more striking is the explosion
in flavored tobacco that has hit the
upscale cafes women frequent - a
far cry from the days when
honey-flavored tobacco was the most
exotic a man might sample.
"I have apple-flavored tobacco, I
have rose flavored, I have strawberry
and I have mint. I even have licorice
and fruit cocktail," said Bahgat
al-Kurdi, a vendor at the neighbor-
hood shop selling tobacco.
"Everyone has their own mood," he
adds.
And his customers?
"There's no man in Egypt that
would smoke strawberry or even
ST. LOUIS (AP) - An HIV-
infected man who had more than
100 known sex partners passed on
the AIDS-causing virus to 8
Missouri females, ranging in age
from 15 to 29, according to a report
released yesterday.
Public health officials said it is
the largest known documented case
of an H IV-infected individual infect-
ing others.
But they also admitted the report
does not tell the whole story.
Citing confidentially laws,
Illinois health
even say
w h e t h e r
they've test-
ed women
who had sex
with Darnell
M c G e e,
even though
he lived in
East St.
Louis, Ill.,
and is said
to have
officials refused to
There is a !
involved for
who are stil
our commwr
Chief Health Office
AP PHOTO
Two women smoke shishes, or waterpipes, Saturday at the Bint Ai-Sultan cof-
fee house in Cairo.
Department
o
apple," he insists. "Only women
would smoke these. Why? Because
the tobacco is lighter and women are
kind of fragile."
At an upscale cafe near one of
Cairo's five-star hotels, a young
woman in black veil drags confident-
ly on a shisha burning apple-flavored
tobacco. The water purrs, and she
knowingly exhales a plume of smoke
that would make any male aficionado
proud.
Students work their way through school
POINT LOOKOUT, Mo. (AP) -There's a new
classroom building going up at the College of the
Ozarks.
No big deal in that. New buildings spring up on col-
lege campuses all the time. Except elsewhere, the stu-
dents don't usually build them.
Here they do, and that's not the half of it. Students
also run the college's fire department, airport and
restaurant, and raise cattle and pigs, some of which
wind up, in one form or another, on the menu.
In exchange for all that, they get a free college edu-
cation.
"This is Hard Work U," said Jerry Davis, president
of one of the Ozarks' best-kept educational secrets.
All students at the College of the Ozarks are
required to work 15 hours a week on the 930-acre
campus of rolling hills and mountain vistas.
"We try to establish a work ethic, to show what it
takes to work, as well as the role of work," said
Michael Howell, a history professor.
Glen Thompson works not one but three jobs, as a
jack-of-all-trades in the music department, a firefight-
er and a groundskeeper.
In the music department, he hauls equipment, helps
set up for concerts and does clerical work. As a
groundskeeper, he was in charge of a mowing crew in
the summer. And at the fire department, he has done
everything from battling a brush fire to administering
aid to athletes with broken bones.
Although the work is tiring, Thompson said he
comes from a family of hard workers, and he enjoys
the excitement of occasionally being called out of
class to answer an emergency.
"The only time I run into trouble studying is not
with work but if I start goofing around," he said.
The college, founded in 1906, draws many of its
1,500 students from Midwestern farms or families
who have worked ovas as missionaries, so they are
used to hard work.
Those admitted can have a family income of no
more than $20,000 to $42,000 a year, depending on
the size of the family and how many members are in
college.
Not only is there no tuition, but room and board
($1,100 a semester for those who stay in the dorms)
can be worked off, too, by taking a summer job on
campus.
"I think this is the only college today that promotes
work and discourages debt," Davis said.
Students can't even take out a federally insured loan
since the college dropped out of the program a few
years ago.
Officials feared they were sending students the
wrong message by encouraging them to rack up thou-
sands of dollars in debt before going out into the
world.
Anyone who came to the college to have fun picked
the wrong place. The school has no social fraternities
and says its mission is to provide a Christian educa-
tion. That means, among other things, being polite to
teachers, taking hats off in the cafeteria and offering
prayers before meals.
"We're pretty old-fashioned," Davis says. "There
infected women there.
McGee was gunned down on a St.
Louis street in January 1997.
In April, Missouri health officials
said McGee had infected about 30
sex partners, but those figures were
based on initial Illinois numbers.
Dr. Larry Fields, chief health officer
for the St. Louis City Department of
Health and Hospitals, expressed frus-
tration about not having more recent
information from Illinois.
"Although the book is closed on
McGee in Missouri, I, too, have an
interest in learning the total number
of partners infected," he said.
Nonetheless, he stressed that the
release of Missouri's report reflect-
ed more than just numbers, but real
lives.
"The information shared today is
more than a story," he said. "There is a
lot of pain involved for individuals
who are still part of our community."
McGee, who learned he was HIV
positive in 1992, had sex with at
least 101 females before his death,
including four who were 13 or 14
years old, according to Missouri's
report, which was compiled by city
and state investigators.
investigators say McGee preyed
on girls with low self-esteem, mak-
ing them feel important with flattery
and gifts, and would pick them up in
front of schools, liquor stores and
skating rinks.
Out of the 18 who have tested pos-
itive, II1 are between 15 and 19; four
are between 20 and 24; and three are
between 25 and 29.
Six of the women have given
birth, but none of the babies has
tested positive.
Officials also said that none ofethe
22 men who were identified as hav-
ing sex with one of the 101 women
have tested
Tot of p a in positive for
HIV.
individuals One
1 part of 1994 and
two in 1996
ity/ f!identified
McGee as a
- frhDr.tLarry Fields sex partner
r for the St. Louis City after they
f Health and Hospitals tested posi-
tive for HIV,
but health officials could not find him
to talk about the risks or state laws
against knowingly spreading the virus.
Last April, the St. Louis Post-
Dispatch ran a story about McGee'4
death that said he had had multiple sex
partners while carrying the HIV virus.
"Thirty women came forward
within two days of that report," said
Pamela Rice Walker of the Missouri
Department of Health.
The police investigation into
McGee's death, originally thought to
be a revenge killing, also appears to
be nearing an end. Montrell Worthy
is awaiting trial.
At the time of his arrest last sum-
mer, Worthy confessed to shooting
McGee during a robbery that netted
only a piece of counterfeit crack
cocaine. He later recanted, saying
police tricked him.
Health officials said they were
aware of only one other case like
McGee in the United States.
In Mayville, N.Y., at least nine
woman tested positive for HIV afte@
having sex with Nushawn Williams.
At least one man was infected with
HIV through sex with one of
Williams' 28 known sex partners,
authorities said last October.
Universities change aid policies
Independence affirmed
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) --
Following Princeton's lead, Yale
University is overhauling its financial
aid policy to make it easier for middle-
class families to send their children
without dipping into retirement savings
or further mortgaging the house.
The changes are expected to pressure
other highly selective schools, includ-
ing the other Ivies, into taking similar
action.
Yale has decided to exempt up to
$150,000 of a family's savings, home
equity and other assets from consider-
ation in determining what parents are
expected to contribute toward their
child's education.
No such exemption now exists at
Yale, where tuition, room and board
will top $30,000 next year. For years,
Ivy League schools have admitted
students on a "need-blind" basis,
meaning that finances are not a con-
sideration in admission.
When a poor or middle-income stu-
dent gets an offer for admission, the
school works out a financial aid pack-
age, typically a mix of grants, bank
loans, contributions from parents and
work-study options. Yale's portion of
the mix averaged about $13,000 a year
in 1997.
The change means that parents will
not be penalized for having sunk all of
their money into paying off their mort-
gage or saving for retirement.
"A lot of students feel bad that their
parents are paying such incredible
amounts for them to come here," said
Mackenzie Baris, a first year student
from Binghamton, N.Y., who uses fed-
eral grants, student loans and work-
study pay to supplement her Yale aid.
"Any kind of help is good," she said.
Says her mother, Carrie Wingate:
"It's wonderful. Now I'll be able to put
some money away and still put her
through school. For a lot of people like
me in the middle-income brackets,
retirement savings is where only extra
money is."
Princeton decided to stop counting
home equity for most families with
incomes below $90,000. The school's
plan also would alter financial aid pack-
ages to increase grants and decrease
loans for students with family incomes
between $40,000 and $57,500.
Additionally, Princeton will replace
loans with grants for students whose
family incomes are below $40,000.
The message is "we will make our-
selves as affordable as that state univer-
sity you're thinking about" said
Princeton spokesperson Justin Harmon.
Princeton acted in response to an
alarming dip in the number of stu-
dents entering on financial aid -
from 49 percent three years ago to 39
percent last year.
Yale has not experienced a signifi-
cant drop in financial aid students, but
said it wanted to avoid such a problem.
"We are recognizing the need of fam-
ilies to save for purposes in addition to
their children's education," said Yale
President Richard Levin.
Harvard spokesperson Alex Huppe
said the number of students on financial
aid remains steady. He declined to say
whether there would be any changes,
deferring comment until March, when
the school announces tuition for the
next academic year.
u
AP PHOTO
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signs a copy of Israel's Declaration of Independence yesterday at the
Knesset in Jerusalem in the presence of Knesset Speaker Dan Tichon and the head of the Opposition Labor Party,
Ehud Barak.
Tougb
Call someone
test?
for sympathy.
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