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Show Monday, Aug. 24, 2009 Page 2 World&Nation Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.aggietownsquare.com ClarifyCorrect The policy of The Utah Statesman is to correct any error made as soon as possible. If you find something you would like clarified or find unfair, please contact the editor at statesmaneditor@aggiemail.usu.edu Celebs&People NEW YORK (AP) – “One Tree Hill” actor Antwon Tanner has pleaded guilty to selling more than a dozen Social Security numbers for $10,000. Tanner told a federal judge in Brooklyn on Friday Tanner that he was a middleman, selling numbers someone else provided. He and his lawyer didn’t comment on how he got involved in the scheme. Tanner is expected to get as much as a year in prison at his sentencing, set for Nov. 20. NewsBriefs Teacher accused of paying student for sex HELPER, Utah (AP) – A former Helper Junior High School teacher has been accused of paying a 15-year-old male student between $1,400 and $1,500 after sexual encounters with him. Melissa Ann Andreini has been charged with three counts of third-degree felony unlawful sexual activity with a minor. If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison on each count. The boy told police that he was paid the money after three separate sexual encounters at her home in June and that his relationship with her began during the 2008-09 school year. LateNiteHumor David Letterman, August 20, 2009 - Top Ten Things Overheard Outside Afghanistan Polling Stations 10. “Can my goat vote?” 9. “Hanging chad? That’s funny, I just hanged a guy named Chad.” 8. “Is this the Fire Dave Letterman rally?” 7. “I’m voting for Ahmad AlFranken.” 6. “Democracy? Yes we Afghani-can.” 5. “Incoming!” 4. “Why is Ralph Nader on the ballot?” 3. “Nothing says democracy like a rigged vote set up by an occupying imperialist power.” 2. “Isn’t it time we do something about the high price of beard delousing?” 1. “I am voting for the candidate who can see Turkmenistan from her cave.” Lieberman says many health care changes can wait WASHINGTON (AP) – An independent senator counted on by Democrats in the health care debate showed signs of wavering Sunday when he urged President Barack Obama to postpone many of his initiatives because of the economic downturn. “I’m afraid we’ve got to think about putting a lot of that off until the economy’s out of recession,” said Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman. “There’s no reason we have to do it all now, but we do have to get started. And I think the place to start is cost health delivery reform and insurance market reforms.” The Senate requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and advance a measure to an up-or-down vote. Senators from both parties said that Democrats might use a voting tactic to overcome GOP opposition, abandoning the White House’s goal of bipartisan support for its chief domestic priority. Democrats control 60 votes, including those of two independents, but illness has sidelined Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. The party’s leaders also cannot be assured that their moderate members will support every health care proposal. “I think it’s a real mistake to try to jam through the total health insurance reform, health care reform plan that the public is either opposed to or of very, very passionate mixed minds about,” Lieberman said. Talk about resorting to this maneuver comes as Republicans dig in against the idea of a government-run insurance program as an option for consumers and a requirement that employers provide health insurance to their workers. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans would like to start over “with a genuine bipartisan approach.” “The American people will be very troubled by a single political party’s ‘my way or the highway’ attitude to overhauling their health care, especially when it means government-run health care, new taxes on small businesses, and Medicare cuts for seniors,” McConnell, R-Ky., said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. Sen. Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., said Democrats would consider the voting tactic, known as reconciliation, if necessary to pass a bill by year’s end if Republicans won’t work Turnout appears low as Afghans vote for president KABUL (AP) – Taliban threats appeared to dampen voter turnout in the militant south Thursday as Afghans chose the next president for their deeply troubled country. Insurgents launched scattered rocket, suicide and bomb attacks, violence that closed some polling sites. Low turnout in the south would harm President Hamid Karzai’s re-election chances and boost the standing of his top challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah. Turnout in the north appeared to be high, a good sign for Abdullah. International officials have predicted an imperfect election – Afghanistan’s second-ever direct presidential vote – but expressed hope that Afghans would accept it as legitimate, a key component of President Barack Obama’s war strategy. Taliban militants, though, pledged to disrupt the vote and circulated threats that those who cast ballots will be punished. A voting official in Kandahar, the south’s largest city and the Taliban’s spiritual birthplace, said voting appeared to be 40 percent lower than during the country’s 2004 presidential election. The official asked not to be identified because he wasn’t authorized to release turnout figures. Associated Press journalists reported low turnouts in Kabul compared with longer lines seen in the 2004 vote. Scattered reports of violence trickled in from around the country, including a rocket that landed near voters in Helmand province and an explosion at a voting site in Kabul. Clashes in Baghlan province closed voting sites and killed police. Security companies in the capital reported at least five blasts, and Kabul police exchanged fire for more than an hour with a group of armed men; two suicide bombers died in the clash, police said. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed that five gunmen were fighting with police. Karzai, dressed in his traditional purple and green striped robe, voted at 7 a.m. at a Kabul high school. He dipped his index finger in indelible ink – a fraud prevention measure – and held it up for the cameras. Presidential palace officials released a rare photo of Karzai’s wife casting her vote. “I request that the Afghan people come out and vote, so through their ballot Afghanistan will be more secure, more peaceful,” Karzai said. “Vote. No violence.” ROBERTA CRAWFORD, 89, WEARS A STICKER in support of single payer health care during the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans fifth annual town hall meeting on health care reform in Delray Beach, Fl., Thursday, Aug. 20. AP Photo toward a bipartisan solution. To Sen. Orrin Hatch, RUtah, “that would be an abuse of the process.” Even Sen. Kent Conrad, the Senate Budget Committee chairman, acknowledged that “it’s an option, but it’s not a very good one.” He has warned that nonbudget items in health care legislation would be challenged under the rules allowing reconciliation. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., also suggested that a fresh start was needed. “Bringing up of the health care situation in the midst of recession, the unemployment problems ... was a mistake,” Lugar said. “For the moment, let’s clear the deck and try it again next year or in subsequent times.” Kennedy, one of the major proponents of health care reform, has missed most of the recent debate because of cancer. Both Hatch and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Kennedy’s absence has taken a toll on the process. “He had a unique way of sitting down with the parties at a table and making the right concessions, which really are the essence of successful negotiations,” McCain said. Primer seeks to break down sterotypes of polygamy SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Utah’s polygamous families have helped create a revamped guidebook called The Primer that they hope will help combat what they consider to be myths and stereotypes about their culture. The 65-page booklet is designed to give social workers, police and other service providers a better understanding of the tenets of polygamist’s beliefs, unique family structures and even their language. “We’re going to continue to have those situations, but that doesn’t mean that we can sit by when we are perceived incorrectly and not speak up,” said Anne Wilde of Salt Lake City, a plural wife for 33 years and now a widow. “By having a primer that has our input and expresses things the way we want to have them expressed I think is very helpful. It gives us a voice.” Bigamy is illegal in Utah and Arizona, where most of the Intermountain West’s polygamists live. But Utah authorities have rarely prosecuted adults, focusing instead on crimes involving women and children. Historically, fear of prosecution has kept most plural families from seeking public services. When they did, service providers often tried to “rescue” them from their religion, Wilde and other polygamists say. Released last week at a training conference, the Primer was produced by the Safety Net Committee, an outreach program working with polygamous communities and public and private service agencies in Utah and Arizona. The guide is an updated version of one produced in 2005 by the Utah Attorney General’s office. Polygamists believed the first Primer unfairly portrayed them as victims trapped in religious groups where abuse permeated the culture. The rewrite sought to find more neutral language and to show that plural families face many of the same challenges as other families. In drafting the new version polygamous groups 42 South Main, Logan, Utah Hoodies, Hats, T-Shirts Polos, Beanies, Kids Apparel, Blankets Back Packs, and more! were asked to clarify or correct information about their specific cultural practices, Safety Net Committee Coordinator Pat Merkley said. The Primer’s information also includes a history of polygamy in the Intermountain West, a glossary of terms and concepts, and a description of the various groups and their respective leadership structures. “I think we’re speaking in their language and in their terms,” she said. “This is the best work we could possibly do. It’s as neutral as it could be, and people are still not going to like part of it.” The information from polygamous groups is balanced against input from critics of the culture, definitions of abuse and an overview of the Utah and Arizona laws that make polygamy illegal. Still, just having it makes a difference, said Merkley, a licensed social worker who had no such blueprint when she first began working with plural families some 20 years ago. “It would have made me be culturally sensitive and aware and alert,” she said. “When I did work with plural families it was a challenge to even know the language they were speaking.” Among the terms and practices defined in the Primer: – Reassignment: The practice of giving an excommunicated man’s wives and children to another man. Some polgyamists believe wives and children belong to the church, not the husband. – Law of Placement: A type of arranged marriage that sometimes has involved underage girls. Couples are matched by church leaders after consultation with parents. Currently leaders of all the major group have denounced underage marraige. – United Order: A system of communal living that calls for families to share their earning and serve others in the community. 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