NEWS
The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 3
ON CAMPUS
* Animal rights and
agricultural to be
discussed
Paul Shapiro, the founder of a Wash-
ington-based nonprofit organization
called Compassion Over Killing, will
hold a lecture today speaking on food
production and the treatment of animals
in the agriculture industry.
The lecture, titled "Ethical Food
Choices in an Age of Agribusiness," will
be held at 7 p.m. in the Michigan Union
Pendleton Room. It is sponsored by the
Michigan Animal Rights Society.
Prof kicks off series
with speech on
Mideast democracy
Political Science Prof. Mark Tessler,
director of the International Institute, will
lecture tomorrow on the political, eco-
nomic, cultural and social implications of
democratization in the Middle East and
other developing regions of the world.
The lecture will take place at 7:30 p.m. in
Room 1636 of the School of Social Work.
* Dance troupes
showcase eastern
India styles
Internationally acclaimed dancers
will showcase traditional Eastern Indi-
an dance in a performance tomorrow
at 7:30 p.m. in the Mendelssohn The-
ater. The program will feature pieces
in the Odissi and Manipuri styles, with
authentic music and costumes.
The performance is a collaboration
between Srishti Dances of India and
Nandanik, a Manipuri dance troupe.
Tickets cost $10 for general admission
and $8 for students.
CRIME
* NOTES
Passing vehicle
dinged by golf ball
A caller reported to the Department
of Public Safety Monday afternoon
" that their car was hit by a golf ball,
that made a ding in the side of the car.
The golf ball hit the car as it was driv-
ing down State Street by the University
Golf Course.
Backpack, cell
phone stolen from
court in CCRB
DPS reports that a student's bag
was stolen from the Central Campus
Recreation Building Monday evening.
The bookbag, which was left out by a
racquetball court, also contained a cell
phone. DPS has no suspects.
Two inmates
escape, run
toward hospital
Two women escaped from the Arbor
Heights Center, a co-ed, low-security
juvenile rehabilitation facility next to
the Nichols Arboretum, Monday eve-
ning. The women were seen running
down Washington Heights toward the
University Hospital.
THIS DAY
In Daily History
Traditions day
teaches freshmen
rites of passage
Sept. 29, 1921 - The University
scheduled its fourth annual Traditions
day meeting in Hill Auditorium to give
freshmen a chance to learn all of the
school's important traditions.
"The Varsity band will be there and
demonstrate one true Michigan tradi-
tion - pep," said Angus Goetz, presi-
dent of the Student Council.
Several cheers were also scheduled
for the event. Al Cuthbert, a member
Reporter charts effects of welfare reform
The reforms were aimed at getting
people off state support and into the
work force, and stressed the importance
of "personal responsibility," DeParle
said.
Nine million women and children
were taken off the welfare rolls due
to the restructuring of the welfare
system. DeParle's book tracks three
such women, Angie, Opal and Jew-
ell, and their struggle to survive
without welfare in urban Milwau-
ing them into responsible adults.
DeParle said he "didn't find it true in
the real world." Instead he found that
children were left to fend for themselves
in neighborhoods populated by gangs
and prostitutes.
He added that many of the women
who did find work still struggled to
After the lecture. Sandra Danziger
and Alfred Young, two public policy
professors, participated in a panel
discussion that praised DeParle's
kee, Wis.
"Angie had
been on welfare
for nearly 12 years
when the Wel-
fare Reform Act
passed. Within six
months, she was a
full-time worker,"
DeParle said. He
used her story to
demonstrate what
he believes to be
the main success
of the act - to get
low-skilled work-
ers jobs.
DeParle's lec-
ture, like his book,
Angie had been on
welfare for nearly
12 years when the
Welfare Reform Act
passed. Within six
months, she was a
full-time worker."
-Jason DeParle
Reporter, New York Times
work.
Danziger sup-
ported DeParle's
observations with
a catalog of sta-
tistics comparing
the state of single
mothers in 1995
and in 2000. She
claimed that with
the new welfare
reforms in place,
the poverty rate
among uneducated
single mothers
dropped by just 8
percent.
Young chal-
lenged the myth that
MIKE HULSEBUS/Daily
New York Times reporter Jason DeParle speaks yesterday In Rackham regarding welfare reform.
By Margaret Havemann
For the Daily
When she was removed from wel-
fare, Opal was homeless, pregnant and
struggling with cocaine abuse, but she
decided to look for a job in a Wisconsin
employment agency.
Upon arriving there, Opal was told
that the office did not provide walk-in
advising and was asked to go home and
schedule an appointment.
Opal's story exemplifies both the
strengths and weaknesses that New
York Times reporter Jason DeParle
sees in the 1996 Welfare Reform Act:
The law encouraged the unemployed
to look for jobs, but failed to create
the proper institutions to help them
in the search or to account for their
children while they worked.
DeParle spoke to an audience of
about 100 graduate students last night in
Rackham Amphitheater about his book
"American Dream: Three Women, Ten
Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Wel-
fare," in which he tracks the stories of
Opal and two other women forced off
welfare.
In 1992 then-President Bill Clinton
introduced his plan to "end welfare as
we know it," a popular slogan of his
election campaign. After four years of
debate within the Republican-led Con-
gress, the Welfare Reform Act was
passed.
dealt less with the policy-making
side of the issue and more with the
real-life consequences for the work-
ing poor.
DeParle said he "was a little skep-
tical at the time" of Clinton's belief
that "work brings dignity, work brings
money, work brings structure." His
main criticism of the effects of the act
was that while it brought single mothers
in the workforce, children were often
left at home alone.
Proponents of the act claimed that
poor working mothers would become
rolemodels for their children, thus shap-
poor people are unmotivated to work,
alluding to Angie's commitment to her
job as a nursing home aid.
Several members of the audience
praised both the lecture and DeParle's
book.
"This book has Pulitzer Prize written
all over it," said Guy Stevens, an audi-
ence member and visiting scholar at the
National Poverty Center, a University-
based research organization.
- William Schneider and Sarah
Zarowny contributed to this report for
the Daily.
Earthquake rocks much
of central California
PARKFIELD, Calif. (AP) - A strong earthquake shook
the state yesterday from Los Angeles to San Francisco, crack-
ing pipes" breaking bottles of wine and knocking pictures
from walls.
There were no immediate reports of any injuries from the
6.0-magnitude quake and its more than 160 aftershocks.
The quake was centered about seven miles southeast of
Parkfield, a town of 37 people known as California's earth-
quake capital. The town is one of the world's most seismically
active areas, located on the San Andreas Fault.
"Things were shaking so bad you couldn't tell where to
go next," said Parkfield Vineyard owner Harry Miller, who
grows 170 acres of wine grapes. "Trees shaking like brooms,
and dust coming from everywhere."
The quake tipped over about 300 cases of his wine, and five
or six of Miller's buildings - including his home - were
damaged. Most of his water pipes burst.
The quake struck at 10:15 a.m. local time and was felt
along a 350-mile stretch, as far north as Sacramento and as
far south as Santa Ana, southeast of Los Angeles. The center
was about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The few residents of Parkfield - a half-dozen buildings on
either side of a street in a valley surrounded by oak-studded
hills - pride themselves on the area's seismic activity. Driv-
The 6.0-magnitude quake shook
the state from Los Angeles to
San Francisco.
ers into town pass a sign reading "Now entering the North
American plate."
"I'll take my earthquakes over those hurricanes any day,"
said John Varian, a lifelong resident and owner of the Parkfield
Cafe, where food spilled out of the cupboards yesterday.
A magnitude-6 quake can cause severe damage, though
any problems are generally far less severe in remote areas
and places like California with strong building codes.
"This is earthquake country. It's a larger earthquake than
what usually occurs, but it's not unprecedented," said U.S.
Geological Survey spokeswoman Stephanie Hanna.
Parkfield was shaken by six similar 6.0 earthquakes
between 1857 and 1966. Countless smaller tremors constant-
ly rattle the area, which is covered with just about every type
of tool used to study quakes as part of a long-term research
project.
"This will probably be the most well-recorded earthquake
in history," said Michael Blanpied of the USGS.
AP PHOTO
Jim Batson carefully walks across bricks In his living room after an earth-
quake yesterday In Parkfield, Calif.
New poll:
Race for
president
tightens
LANSING (AP) - The presidential
race in Michigan has tightened again,
with Democratic candidate John Kerry
back in a near-tie with President Bush,
according to a poll released yesterday.
In the poll, commissioned by the news-
letter Inside Michigan Politics and con-
ducted by Marketing Resource Group of
Lansing, 45 percent of the 600 registered
voters polled said they back Kerry, while
43 percent back Bush. One percent back
independent candidate Ralph Nader and
11 percent are undecided.
The poll was conducted Sept. 20-24
and had a margin of error of plus or
minus 4 percentage points.
"It shows some movement by Bush in
the last couple of weeks," Inside Michi-
gan Politics editor Bill Ballenger said. "I
would have thought Bush would be get-
ting killed right now ... but he's not."
A poll conducted Sept. 15-19 by Lan-
sing-based EPIC/MRA had Kerry at 48
percent and Bush at 44 percent, with
Nader getting 2 percent and 6 percent
undecided.
Pollster Paul King of Marketing
Resource Group said the fact that the num-
ber of undecideds now is in double digits
may indicate a lack of enthusiasm among
some voters for either Bush or Kerry.
"You don't see a lot of groundswell
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