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Getting the job done
The Oregon women's basketball team beat UCLA
to end a two-game losing streak. PAGE 5
Monday
Too much defense
The Baltimore Ravens dominated Super Bowl XXXV
with a stifling defense. PAGE 6
January 29,2001
Volume 102, Issue 82
Weather
today
high 45, low 30
Since 1 900 University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon
Laura Smit Emerald
Jennifer Hess (left), a graduate student in exercise and movement science, assists Wanda Kimball, an elderly member of the strength and
balance study at the Motor Control Laboratory.
Study may give elderly new strength
4
■ University researchers will conduct a strength and balance study
that may help elderly people better perform daily activities
By Mandy Toomey
Oregon Daily Emerald
In the past 10 years, Charlotte
Mullen, 74, has noticed her legs get
ting weaker. Although she has not
fallen yet, she has come close many
times, and has at times felt inhibited
by her lack of leg strength.
But a study by researchers in the
department of exercise and move
ment science could benefit people
like Mullen. The study aims to find
out if muscle conditioning can im
prove balance in elderly people.
“The ability of adults over 65 to
live independently is compromised
because of their fear of falling and
shattering a hip,” said Jennifer Hess,
director of the study. She added that
this a common accident: Every year,
one in three adults over 65 falls and
breaks a hip.
Although the study focuses on the
elderly, Hess said it affects everyone.
“All of us have parents or grand
parents we know now who could
benefit from this knowledge,” she
said.
Hess will lead the study, which
will analyze 36 individuals age 65
and older three days a week for 12
weeks. The participants’ balance and
muscle strength will be tested at the
beginning of the study. After low-im
pact muscle training focusing on
lower leg muscles, the balance and
muscle strength will be retested and
compared with the original figures.
Turn to Strength, page 3
Groups conflict
over fundraiser
■ College Democrats and Students For Choice
refuse to join a fundraiser for Womenspace because
of anti-abortion group Justice For All’s participation
By Jeremy Lang
Oregon Daily Emerald
Echoing the current call for biparti
sanship being made in Washington,
D.C., the College Republicans are enlist
ing the help of a variety of student
groups to raise money for the Women
space clinic for domestic violence.
But the College Democrats and Stu
dents For Choice have declined to be
part of the fundraiser because Justice
For All, a campus group that opposes a
woman’s right to choose an abortion,
has already decided to participate.
Last year, Justice For All sponsored
the controversial Genocide Awareness
Project, which used large posters in the
EMU Amphitheater to compare abor
tion to the Holocaust.
Senior English major Scott Austin,
who is a member of both College Repub
licans and Justice For All, said the idea
was to bring all four groups together to
show the widest support for the clinic,
which has been in Eugene for 24 years.
“Here are four groups that are polar
opposites of each other,” Austin said.
“But here’s a program all four groups
can agree on.”
The College Republicans are plan
ning to spend a weekend in February
calling Eugene homes, soliciting money
and other donations for Womenspace.
But College Democrats co-chairman
Jed McGuire said after discussing the of
fer in its meetings, the group thought it
would be a poor environment in which
to have groups with such varying politi
cal ideologies together.
Students For Choice director Sara
Poynter agreed and said her group,
which advocates abortion rights, does
n’t want to be affiliated with a group that
adamantly opposes them.
“If Justice For All wasn’t involved,
Turn to Fundraiser, page 4
Domes
tic violence
does not
recognize
ideological
boundaries
[and] we
have to
reach across
some ide
ological
boundaries.
But we
can’t stretch
across the
board.
Margo
Schaefer
community
outreach
director,
Womenspace
n
Conference issues call to combat environmental racism
Winona
LaDukeand
other speakers
emphasized
global equality
last weekend at
the Economic
and
Environmental
Justice
Conference
By Brooke Ross
Oregon Daily Emerald
Dozens of people had to sit outside,
while hundreds more packed into the
EMU Ballroom on Friday to listen to
former Green Party vice presidential
candidate Winona LaDuke call on na
tional leaders to end environmental
racism.
Her speech kicked off the Seventh
Annual Economic and Environmental
Justice Conference, “The Environment
Sees No Color.”
Turnout remained steady throughout
the weekend as people participated in
workshops, panels and social events to
examine the issue of environmental
racism, which is often defined as the
dumping of pollutants in areas where
minorities and low-income people
live.
LaDuke spoke of the consequences
that can result from pollution, regard
less of where it is placed.
“There are about 72,000 chemicals
out there, and we have no idea how
they may impact our bodies,” she said.
A health problem that can arise from
environmental pollution is birth de
fects, which can be caused when preg
nant women ingest chemicals that trav
el to their unborn babies, LaDuke said.
However, certain areas in the world
have greater pollution problems than
others, so several events on Saturday
addressed the impacts of environmen
tal racism felt by other countries.
Ipat Luna, a panelist and teaching
fellow at University of California,
Berkeley, discussed what she believes
is a growing crisis in the Philippines.
She said the United States uses the
country as its dumping ground for
Turn to Conference, page 3
Tom Patterson Emerald
Sophomore Sura Cox talks with a visitor to her booth at Lane Community College Saturday.