University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 22, Ed. 1 Wednesday, November 18, 1998 Page: 6 of 6
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University Press • Wednesday, November 18,1998 • Page 6
Pot producing county
elects ex-con as DA
AP Pixel photo
Dinosaur over easy
An interior view of a fossilized dinosaur egg discovered in Argentina by a joint American
Museum of Natural History and Museo Municipal Carmen Funes expedition is seen in this
photo from the American Museum of Natural History. The egg, showing fossilized embry-
onic skin in the upper left hand corner, is one of thousands found at a newly discovered
dinosaur nesting site.
Meteors
Continued from page 1
UKIAH, Calif. (AP) — The rule
of law seems to have a weak hold in
this county of spectacular forests,
canyons, rocky coastal cliffs and
some of the finest marijuana in the
world.
I In Mendocino County,, pot is the
biggest cash crop and the,new district
attorney is an ex-con.
“People tell .me one of two
things,” said district attorney-elect
Norman Vroman. “It’s either, ‘I wish
I had the guts to do what you did
against the IRS,’ or it’s ‘How in the
world do you believe you can be the
top prosecutor if you’ve served time
in federal prison?”’
. Vroman, a lawyer, served nine
months behind bars during the early
1990s for failing to pay several thou-
sand dollars in income taxes.
Last week, Vroman, running on a
platform that included decriminaliza-
tion of marijuana, defeated a three-
term incumbent who was president-
elect of the California District Attor-
ney Association.
This rugged county of 52,000 peo-
ple 100 miles north of San Francisco
also elected a new sheriff, Tony
Craver, who also backs decriminal-
ization.
In Vroman’s case, voters were dis-
pleased with the incumbent’s han-
dling of a big murder case in which a
sheriff’s deputy on stakeout was shot
to death. The defendant was acquit-
ted.
* But the folksy and engaging
Vroman also was seen admiringly as
a rebel. And Craver has a blunt,
genial manner that went over well
with people and was seen as having
deeper roots in the county, than the
previous sheriff, who spent a decade
in Los Angeles County.
The two men’s stance on marijua-
na figured in both campaigns in this
county of mountain folk, ex-hippies,
yuppies and refugees from big cities.
“It was a hot issue. Up until now,
there has been a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’
policy. They have not harassed us,
but on the other hand, they have not
cooperated with us,” said Marvin
Lehrman, who runs a 200-member
medical marijuana club. “Vroman’s
slogan was ‘It’s time for a change,’
and that’s what we want.”
A lanky, mustachioed, by-the-
book sheriff’s officer, the 61-year-old
Craver has busted drug dealers and
growers for years in an area where
the famously potent marijuana
retails for $5,000 a pound.
But he also believes marijuana use
should be decriminalized. Decrimin-
alization could reduce marijuana use
from a misdemeanor under state law,
which can bring a jail term, to the
equivalent of a traffic offense, which
normally carries only a fine.
Commercial growers and traffick-
ers should be prosecuted, but “if you
light up a joint in your home, who are
you hurting?,” Craven asked.
However, both he and Vroman
said their personal views on marijua-
na use will not affect their official
duties.
“It’s illegal. If he arrests them, I’ll
prosecute them,” Vroman said.
Mendocino County has produced
more marijuana since 1995 than any
of California’s 57 other counties.
Last year, state and local agents in
helicopters and ground squads raid-
ed 340 pot plantations in Mendocino
County and seized $204 million
worth of weed. Authorities believe
that for every plant they find, there
are perhaps#10 more out there.
The county’s isolated hollows are
ideal for secret pot gardens that yield
marijuana highly prized by aficiona-
dos.
“It’s considered about the best in
the world, if not the best. It’s about
10 to 25 times more potent than the
marijuana of the 1960s,” said state
Justice Department spokesman Mike
Van Winkle.
Vroman, who said he moved to
Mendocino County in 1975 to escape
the pressures of Southern California,
has worked a prosecutor, a fill-in
judge, a defense attorney and a pub-
lic defender. In fact, the last three
district attorneys in Mendocino
County had also been public defend-
ers.
“I don’t know whether it’s
because people are suspicious of
authority, but I think a lot of it has to
do with people not wanting the D.A.
to be tough on lightweight crimes.
They don’t like wasting money,” said
retiree George McClure of Ukiah.
Vroman has piled up $1.3 million
in tax liens and filed for bankruptcy
twice, and in 1991 was sent to prison.
“They cited the Internal Revenue
Service Code, but there is no law that
says you have to file a return,” he
said. “They use fear. That’s how the
IRS works.”
Force KC-135, was to join it there.
NASA and other agencies are fund-
ing the $870,000 mission.
Scientists hope to identify the most
energetic of the iron-rich meteoroids
and how their composition contributes
to their brightness.
“We know very little about iron in
the atmosphere, and even less about the
contribution from meteors,” said
NCAR project manager Bruce Morley.
“Observing just one meteor accurately
from the sky would make a big differ-
ence in our understanding.”
That understanding would extend far
beyond milder meteor showers, about
once a month, or more intense meteor
storms, which are rare.
It also might help to explain the ori-
gins of life on Earth. The planet was
formed more than 4 billion years ago
from a swirling disc of gases and debris
that contained organic materials.
Similar materials still hitch rides to
Earth aboard debris that crosses Earth’s
path, by some estimates as much as 100
tons a day. Meteoroids contain iron,
nickel and silica.
“After billions of years, it would add
up,” Butow said.
Other researchers say that better
meteor research can be conducted from
the ground, at a fraction of the cost of
keeping aircraft aloft.
Canadian astrophysicists will manage
another set of Leonid observations from
Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, Australia’s
north coast and other dry, remote loca-
tions.
Project manager Peter Brown of
Western Ontario University said air-
borne vibrations cause big problems
when you’re trying to measure a mete-
orite’s angle to an accuracy within hun-
dredths of a degree.
“Jiggling around on an airplane real-
ly complicates the analysis,” he said.
“The interpretation of airborne data
will be a lot more controversial.”
The previous Leonids display in 1966
peaked at 150,000 meteors each hour.
This year’s celestial fireworks are
expected to be less intense.
Most particles are smaller than peas.
But they zing into the atmosphere at
160.000 mph. At that speed, even a grain
of table salt carries the wallop of a .22-
caliber bullet. And the friction of the
atmosphere heats them to 3,600
degrees.
The NASA group will study the par-
ticles with the latest laser instruments
and high-definition television cameras.
NCAR’s Electra will cruise back and
forth along a north-south route at
25.000 feet. The faster Air Force plane
will circle the Electra in a racetrack pat-
tern at 35,000 feet.
Using two aircraft should yield
stereoscopic observations of the storm
with a variety of instruments.
The Electra carries a dual-beam lidar,
or laser-based radar. Its near-ultraviolet
beams will excite iron molecules as they
vaporize from the meteoroids, and their
fluorescence will be measured.
“In 1966, most people didn’t see the
meteor storm because of bad weather,”
Butow said. “There were instruments
set up all over the world, but very little
data were collected.”
The focus of the ground-based study
is to improve meteor storm forecasts by
studying the paths that meteoroids
trace, and how the particles behave in a
stream through space.
Incoming particles pose a significant
threat to 500 satellites, which supply the
world with everything from weather data
and TV signals to military intelligence.
The particles could sandblast satel-
lites orbiting 22,000 miles above Earth. .
Even worse, they may generate electro-
magnetic pulses that can knock out the
satellites’ computer brains.
In 1993, a meteoroid-generated pulse
disabled the European Space Agency’s
Olympus satellite.
“There has not been a meteor storm
since the onset of the space age,” Brown
said. “All the data we collect will be
used to protect satellites.”
Notice
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Nov. 25.
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105 Employment
Experienced two-
way radio technician
wanted. Familiar
with Motorola fixed,
portable and mobile
equipment. Send
r6sum6 to P.O. Box
21098 Beaumont, Tx.
77720-1098. Salary
based on experience.
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105 Employment
BTL Tournaments
is seeking a Sports
Marketing Intern to
coordinate amateur
sporting events in
1999. This person
should be self moti-
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supervise a large vol-
unteer base, and
interested in sports
marketing. Please
contact O.D. Fought
at 972-818-6430x5, or
fax resume to 972-
818-6435.
105 Employment
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during school, work
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Sonnier, Todd. University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 22, Ed. 1 Wednesday, November 18, 1998, newspaper, November 18, 1998; Beaumont, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth500800/m1/6/: accessed July 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Lamar University.