The Iowa State Cyclones will open the Big 12 race this weekend on the road at 24th rated Oklahoma State. The Cyclones are 2-1 and did not play last weekend. I-S-U coach Dan McCarney says the time off has allowed some of the injured Cyclones to return. He says lineman Luke Vandersanden is back, and it’s still day-to-day for Cephus Johnson and kicker Tony Yelk. Yelk’s future may be the most critical. The kicking game has struggled while has been out with a leg injury. McCarney calls it one of the real weaknesses on the team as they’re last in the conference in P-A-T’s and field goals made. He says they’ve worked hard on the kicking game in the off week and are continuing to evaluate everyone to determine a starter for this week.
DCI to create task force to stop Internet crimes against kids
September 27, 2004 By
The State Division of Criminal Investigation has won a 300-thousand dollar federal grant to create the Iowa Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. D-C-I assistant director Steve Bogle says the unit will conduct reactive and proactive investigations into the sexual exploitation of children via the Internet. Bogle says “We’ll have officers on the Internet, in chat rooms, posing as young children. Of course we’ll be careful not to entrap anyone but we will have a presence out there.” Bogle says the task force will be made up of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies working together. Bogle says “There’s a lot of predators out there that are pretending to be somebody else and trying to entice children. We want to be able to, not only investigate those crimes, but collect the forensic evidence that exists off of computers and from Internet service providers.” While we frequently hear news reports about a child being found at a hotel with some adult they met on the Internet, Bogle says it’s unclear how prevalent the crime is in Iowa, and how many incidents are never reported or discovered. Bogle says Iowa parents can take a few precautions to prevent their kids from falling victim to sexual exploitation via their home computers: make sure the computer the child is using is somewhere out where there’s adult supervision, not in the child’s bedroom. Also, adults need to become familiar with the computer and the same programs the child is using. Bogle also suggests getting free software that will block kids from being able to access certain websites and chat rooms. For more information, he suggests surfing to “www.missingkids.org” for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Group seeks to help victims of Priest abuse
September 27, 2004 By
A group called “SNAP” — the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests — has a northeast Iowa chapter, and its co-founder is hoping to expand the group into other areas of the state. The northeast Iowa chapter of SNAP — the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests — is already holding monthly meetings in Dubuque, Hudson, Mason City and Cedar Rapids. Chapter co-founder Steve Theisen of Hudson says they hope to start chapters in Davenport, Des Moines and Sioux City soon. Theisen says he got involved in the group because he was abused as a child in a Dubuque Catholic Church. Theisen says when the priest abuse scandal broke in the Boston Diocese in 2002, ” it just kind of all surfaced again” and he says he knew he had to try to help other victims. Theisen says he got a lot of help from counselors, and the love of his family and friends. Theisen says he’s one of the fortunate ones. “I’m kinda surprised, sometimes, why I’m standing upright,” he says. Theisen says it’s important to reach out to other survivors, to let them know they’re not alone. He hopes priests and nuns “will be honest and truthful” someday, so victims and parishes can heal. Theisen says the group’s primary focus is not about forming legal strategy to sue the church, but aims to find ways to help victims heal. Theisen says there’s another target audience, too as they hope parishioners become part of their group, too, because some victims are afraid to go to church for fear of the reactions from their neighbors in the pews. You can reach the Northeast Iowa SNAP chapter at 319-610-2501, and Theisen says you can call him at work, too, at 319-231-1663. If you’re on-line, the national Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests is at www.snapnetwork.org. Theisen passed leaflets out at two Iowa City Catholic churches on Sunday — churches that were served by a priest who’s now under investigation for abusing a boy in 1998.
Urbandale woman injured by pop bottle bomb
September 27, 2004 By
A 61-year-old woman in a Des Moines suburb was injured Sunday when a bomb made out of a plastic pop bottle exploded. Urbandale Police Department spokesman, Sergeant Dave Disney, says the woman was trying to get rid of two bottle bombs she discovered in her yard. He says she was trying to relieve the pressure from the bottles and she couldn’t get the lid off the second one and punctured it. The bottle then exploded in her hand. Disney says the unidentified woman suffered injuries to her hand and maybe to her hearing, but she refused medical treatment. Disney says the exploding bottle could be heard several blocks away and raises this warning for anyone who finds one. He says don’t try to mess with it, don’t touch it, and call your local police department. He says they’re very unstable and you don’t know when they could go off. Disney says it’s also something you should warn kids about.He says parents should talk to kids about finding something suspicious, as he says the bombs look like a typical two-liter plastic pop bottle. He says kids should know that they should stay away from them as they could really get hurt. The bottle bombs are sometimes called McGuyver bombs after a former TV show. Disney says they aren’t that common, although they did arrest a man earlier this year for building them. He says the man arrested in August was charged with two counts of possessing explosives, a felony. He says people might think they’re a prank, but he says this shows they’re dangerous and someone can get hurt. Disney says they’re looking for the person who built the two bombs. The Polk County Crimestoppers are offering a 500-dollar award for information leading to the person’s arrest and conviction.
Almanac calls for cold, snowy February and March
September 27, 2004 By
One book on this month’s best-seller list is the new 2005 edition of the Old Farmer’s Almanac. MareAnne Jarvela a senior editor at the Almanac, says people still read it for the weather forecasts…for the whole year. Jarvela says people pick it up for weather information, especially whether the winter will be cold or have much snow. Iowa gets its own forecast in the annual publication. It looks like winter will begin mild and dry but she says “watch out” — February and March will be the coldest and snowiest they’ve been in a long time. They print about four-million copies for sale in the U.S., as well as about 400-thousand for distribution in Canada, and she says the Almanac’s around number-three this week on the New York Times best-seller list. If you don’t pick one up at the newsstand, the publication that dates from 1792 is also on the Internet. There’s all kinds of information that couldn’t fit into the almanac, as well as tables, planting and gardening information. The link’s www-dot-almanac-dot-com.
Iowa falls out of the polls after Michigan loss
September 27, 2004 By
The Iowa Hawkeyes have dropped out of the USAToday/ESPN coaches poll after a 30-17 loss at Michigan. The Hawkeyes had five turnovers and four led to Michigan touchdowns. The Iowa run game continues to struggle. Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz says they can put a running game together, they just have to keep working on it. He says they’re extremely young, but acted more like a Big Ten team against Michigan. Drew Tate had two interceptions and a costly fumble but he had a pair of touchdown passes and finished with 270 yards of passing. He says they have some tough guys on their team, and there’s none tougher than Tate. Ferentz says if they can weather the early storm, they’ll be okay.Defensive end Matt Roth had seven tackles and a sack as the Iowa defense battled a Michigan offense which consistently had good field position. He says even when things weren’t going so well, the guys still love to be on the field and play hard.
On-line connections continue to grow for colleges
September 27, 2004 By
With school back in session, students at Iowa’s colleges and universities are more “wired” than ever before. Steve Moon is director of network services at the University of Northern Iowa and says computers and the Internet have been an integral part of the school experience for a while now. Internet access dates to the early 1990s on campus, though back then students got on-line using university computers in public computer labs. As years passed more brought their own desktop and laptop computers, dialing in through phone lines and then high-speed Internet connections installed by the school. Today, he says there are thousands pulling onto the information superhighway. Counting student machines in the dorms, UNI probably assigns 10,000 different network addresses to computers, routers, switches, wireless access points, hubs, printers and servers. Moon says the “wi-fi” or wireless connections that can put a computer on-line without plugging it in can be useful in many locations. He points out that in the Uni-Dome or library it doesn’t make any sense to try and use a network connection that’s physically wired, and “wiring people who are truly mobile doesn’t make a lot of sense either.” The portable laptop or notebook computer may be the latest thing, but Moon says there are also plenty of situations in which wi-fi isn’t going to replace wires or fiber-optic lines, at least for now.He says important jobs involving instruction and administration should be handled with wired connections, for reasons Moon says include quality, security, speed and that the network’s proven it can handle the current workload. He says there are questions whether wireless computer links can do all that. Moon says there’s no question that computers are in education to stay, and there will remain many ways to connect and use them.
