national

By JAMES B. MEADOWS
Scripps Howard News Service
Monday, May 14, 2007

As controversies go, this one isn't exactly a whopper. It's more of a -- well, let's just say it's about a wopburger and what happens when the menu at an iconic Louisville, Colo., restaurant collides with ethnic sensibilities and political correctness in the 21st century.

And, essentially, what happens is the icon blinks first. Which is why the menu at the Blue Parrot restaurant will soon offer an "Italian burger" instead of a you-know-what burger.

How, you ask, could something as benign -- to say nothing of tasty -- as a "sausage patty with melted cheese served with sauce" ignite an ethnic flap? Well ..

It all began about 1919, when Michael and Emira Colacci, fresh from Campobasso, Italy, decided that opening a restaurant Louisville, Colo., made sense. A place for coal miners, of which Michael was one, to eat, to be comfortable around fellow paisanos.

The you-know-what burger's name wasn't an ethnic slur. It was, Michael and Emira's granddaughter would insist 88 years later, "A nickname. It just meant they were Italian, proud to be Italian."

At least that's what Michael and Emira thought. At least that's what their son Joe and their grandchildren Joan and Richard thought. And, apparently, it's what generations of locals like Chuck Scarpella thought.

Scarpella, former head of the Louisville Society of Italian Americans, says the you-know- what burger had "been there all my life. My grandma worked in the Blue Parrot. My mom worked there, I worked there, my kids worked there. It's never been offensive."

Until about a month ago.

A transplanted East Coast Italian-American named James Gambino came in, saw the item on the menu and, says Joan Riggins (nee Colacci), "really raised a stink. He said he was offended and demanded we take it off the menu."

Gambino admits he was "shocked," but remembers "politely" speaking to the Blue Parrot. "They basically laughed at us."

Then the April 13 letter from the Washington, D.C.-based National Italian American Foundation arrived. The one in which Chairman A. Kenneth Ciongoli wrote he was "alarmed to learn" of the you-know-what burger being on the menu. "Perhaps you are not aware that this is a pejorative term that insults the Italian American community," he added.

No way, thought Riggins, to Ciongoli's renaming suggestion. "This is our business." Apparently, the Boulder Valley School District didn't agree.

Gambino, who complained to the National Italian American Foundation, also took his case to the school district, which, it seems, had been happily buying Blue Parrot sauce for 10 years and using it in its lunch program.

"We love using the product," says Linda Stoll, director of food services for the school district. "It's 100 percent natural, exactly the kind of product we want."

When Stoll learned the Blue Parrot had a you-know-what burger on its menu, she called Richard Colacci, a restaurant owner and boss of the sauce operation.

"I explained that the district is very proud of our stance on ethnic equity issues," recalls Stoll, adding that the you-know-what burger "didn't conform to the way we felt about those issues."

Then, "I asked if they would consider renaming the item."

Colacci spoke with his sister and nephew. The next day he called Stoll back. The Blue Parrot would have new menus as soon as they could be printed. Commerce had trumped a menu tradition.

By JIM BALLOCH
Scripps Howard News Service
Friday, May 11, 2007

It might have appeared that the bear was looking for accommodations more sophisticated than a cave in the woods.

But more likely, he was just temporarily sidetracked from his search for a home in the wild.

A young black bear was sighted May 6 nosing around a bird feeder at the Cherokee Bluff condominium community here, according to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

The bear was probably on the move looking for new habitat, said Wildlife biologist Dave Brandenburg.

"Presumably, he was not looking for a condo," Brandenburg added.

When young black bears reach a certain age range, they naturally begin to disperse from their first home areas and seek their own habitat, whereas female bears tend to stay closer to their original home areas, he said.

"It's not uncommon for (the young males) to move 50, even 100 miles," Brandenburg said.

Mostly, they will be active at night and try to avoid human contact. But they can be attracted by outdoor food sources, such as bird feeders, garbage and pet or livestock food, and may hang around as long as such items are available.

"This is not uncommon," Brandenburg said.

Scripps Howard News Service
Friday, May 11, 2007

Police locked down Boulder High School Thursday after two suspicious men wearing camouflage were seen inside the building, officials said. One of the suspects wore a ski mask.

The Boulder Police Department's SWAT team canvassed the school, which included a thorough room-by-room search, plus inspection of lockers, closets and the underground theater tunnels, police said.

They also brought in a dog to search the building for explosives.

"We're not going to rush the search," Chief Mark Beckner said during a news conference.

"This will be a much more methodical search than the first," Beckner said, noting that officers will be "opening every door, looking in every closet."

Police now are taking Boulder High officials into the building for a final check of the premises.

"Given the times that we live in -- and recent events -- we have to take all precautions," Beckner said. "We don't know if this is a prank. We don't know if this is a burglary. We don't know if this is something more than that. We're going to take every precaution we can.

"You really can't take any chances today. Unfortunately that's the world we live in."

The FBI is on the scene as well, officials said.

The Boulder Valley superintendent notified police at about 8:30 a.m. that school was canceled for the day. School officials also called off all after-school activities.

The University of Colorado temporarily closed 19 buildings as well during the police search.

A food service person working at Boulder High School around 6 a.m. spotted two men dressed in camouflage in the building, Boulder Valley schools spokesman Briggs Gamblin said in a statement.

The employee shouted at them and they turned and ran, officials said.

Police were called and at this point there are no reports of weapons, Gamblin said.

Beckner said he is "not confident at all" that the men remain inside the school, noting "they could have run outside."

Police, however, are containing their search to the high school and are not combing adjacent neighborhoods.

"Our focus is here," Beckner said.

School officials said there are 15 security cameras on the outside of the school, but none inside.

Students arriving at Boulder High Thursday morning said their initial reaction was that the incident wasn't a precursor to some kind of Columbine-like attack, but, rather, a prank.

"What we thought was that maybe some kids decided to do a senior prank," senior Jon Eddings said. "But I think they would have given up by now and we would have known about it."

Incoming Superintendent Chris King acknowledged that Thursday's incident could be a prank.

"May is a time when many high schools have senior pranks, but I wouldn't want to speculate," King said.

About 50 students who were en route to the school on buses were diverted to Fairview High School, where their parents picked them up.

"Kids were never in harms way here today because of the early hours," King said. "We don't know who was in the building. We just know somebody was in the building we didn't recognize. We don't know if they were a threat or not."

About 1,900 students are enrolled at the high school, said assistant principal Kevin Braney and about 400 students were scheduled to take advanced placement tests Thursday.

By ROBERT COLLIER
San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, May 11, 2007

In a case that critics say demonstrates a U.S. double standard on terrorism, a federal judge has dismissed all charges against Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative who has been accused of masterminding a 1976 bombing of a Cuban civilian airplane that killed 73 people and a series of 1997 bombings in Havana.

In a ruling Tuesday in El Paso, Texas, a federal judge dismissed immigration fraud charges against the Cuban-Venezuelan exile, citing a remarkably mundane reason -- the government's translator had botched the English-Spanish interpretation of Posada's naturalization interview in 2005.

Posada, 79, is expected to return soon to his home in Miami as a hero of that city's anti-Castro right wing, despite U.S. government documents made public recently that have tied him to terrorist acts.

The ruling quickly brought sharp criticism from the Venezuelan and Cuban governments, as well as some members of Congress.

Bernardo Herrera, Venezuela's ambassador to the United States, called the ruling "an outrageous double standard." Speaking at a press conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, he likened Posada to Osama bin Laden, noting that the bombing of the Cuban flight remains the world's ninth-deadliest act of airplane terrorism.

"The case of Posada is like if Osama bin Laden had been arrested in Afghanistan because he entered without a visa. For us, it's clear that this is in the hands of the White House," Herrera said.

In Congress, some liberals urged the Bush administration to use its powers under the Patriot Act to certify Posada as a terrorist and keep him behind bars.

"If the administration does not avail itself of all legal avenues to detain this terrorist and bring him to justice, it will send a message to the world that President Bush believes in the old adage that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter," said Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass.

Legally, Posada remains in a Kafkaesque limbo. He is under a deportation order, but courts have ruled that he cannot be deported to Cuba or its close ally Venezuela because of fears he would be subject to torture in those countries.

Since Tuesday's ruling, the Bush administration has downplayed the collapse of its case against Posada.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a statement late Wednesday noting that Posada must check in with immigration officials upon his return to Miami, but not saying whether it plans to appeal the ruling.

"At this time, we're reviewing the judge's decision and we're evaluating our options," said Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd. He declined to explain why the government had not filed terrorism charges against Posada. "I'm not going to get into our internal deliberations," he said.

Reach Robert Collier at rcollier(at)sfchronicle.com. To comment or for more stories visit scrippsnews.com

By GABRIEL MARGASAK
Scripps Howard News Service
Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Throngs of visitors at SeaWorld Orlando delighted in the lively bark of a harp seal asking for fish and watching harbor seals swim in a pristine blue aquarium.

But on the inside of the seal pen, the veterinary staff at the famous marine mammal park was saddened by the death of another animal they had tried so desperately to save. Still, researchers hope the animal's death could help solve the mystery of how it ended up on the Treasure Coast -- thousands of miles from its home.

The long journey of a bearded arctic seal ended here Tuesday morning, almost a week after he was spotted off the Treasure Coast. Not even rescue efforts by Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution and SeaWorld could help the animal that was likely diseased before it even arrived here.

"I'm hesitant to speculate as to what was really wrong with him ... We're going to perform an exhaustive postmortem examination," said Christopher Dold, a SeaWorld veterinarian.

That could take weeks. But even amid the grim task, there was hope.

"Ironically, there's actually probably more that we can know now that he's expired," Dold said. "So it's a mild silver lining to an otherwise very unfortunate event."

Veterinarians hope tests can show what killed the animal as well as why it ended up on the Treasure Coast as what may be a first for this species of seal.

When a 4-month-old hooded seal named Patches was euthanized last fall, tests found evidence the seal had been searching for food and that might have brought it south from the Arctic. The seal's stomach was filled not with fish but with trash, including a candy-bar wrapper.

"We tried and that's where we're at," said Harbor Branch's Steve McCulloch, manager of the marine-mammal-stranding program. "It's a sad day."

SeaWorld specialists started looking for answers to how the bearded seal swam to the balmy waters of the Treasure Coast from the frigid Arctic icepacks.

Teams from Harbor Branch started tracking the seal after it was spotted Thursday in the Indian River Lagoon and Intracoastal Waterway off Stuart.

The team could only watch because it didn't have the right equipment to attempt a rescue.

Just as wildlife experts predicted, the seal turned up again Friday for a rest on a floating dock at a residential marina at Loblolly Bay in Hobe Sound. A growing contingent of rescuers dumped ice on the dock to try to lure the animal into a kennel. But the seal slipped back into the Intracoastal and disappeared for the weekend.

It emerged again almost 80 miles away in a residential back yard in the Fort Lauderdale area on Monday.

The rescue team snared the seal in a net and jumped on top to wrestle the 6-foot animal weighing about 250 pounds into a truck used to save marine mammals.

Back at SeaWorld, Dold's team tried antibiotics, steroids and rehydrating fluid.

"We're of course saddened by the outcome of this ... we always hold out hope that we're going to be able to save lives and hopefully return every stranded marine mammal that comes to us to their natural environment," Dold said.

By MATT WEISER
Sacramento Bee
Tuesday, May 08, 2007

On a golden morning in the hills of Yolo County, Scott and Casey Stone sort cattle for shipment to summer pasture.

The brothers, on horseback, silently weave through the noisy herd. With practiced eyes, they match cows with their calves before the truck arrives.

All around them is their 7,500-acre family ranch, a picture-perfect slice of a California landscape that is increasingly at risk.

Open space like this _ rolling hills, ancient oak trees, flower-filled meadows _ defines the state's scenery and supports a huge share of its wildlife. It is also the rallying cry for an unlikely coalition bent on keeping rangeland away from developers eager to satisfy demand for housing.

"There's been a lot of really nice ranches in California that over the years have been purchased and subdivided," said Scott Stone, 50. "We don't want to do that. We're trying to do ecologically friendly, sustainable ranching that benefits both us and the watershed and wildlife."

That's why the Stone brothers and their father, Hank, in 2005 preserved rangeland by selling development rights on their ranch. It's why they support the California Rangeland Conservation Coalition, which aims to protect about 13 million acres of oak woodland and grazing land between Redding and Bakersfield.

Taking on such a task shouldn't be a big deal for the coalition. After all, it's already achieved the unthinkable: getting environmentalists and cattle ranchers to work together.

Last year, 32 environmental and agriculture groups launched the alliance by signing the "California Rangeland Resolution." They committed to keeping grazing lands in the hands of cattle and sheep ranchers and helping them preserve the land by funding conservation projects.

For this, entities like the California Cattlemen's Association joined longtime adversaries such as Defenders of Wildlife, known for battling ranchers to reintroduce wolves in the Rocky Mountains.

Despite historic differences, the two found they care equally about the same California landscape.

California lost 105,000 acres of grazing land to urbanization between 1990 and 2004, according to the state Department of Conservation. The California Oak Foundation projects it could lose 750,000 acres more by 2040.

"We have a common threat, and that is the conversion of ranchland to homes and strip malls and sprawl," said Kim Delfino, California program director at Defenders of Wildlife. "It's actually nice to have a project where we're all working together rather than at cross-purposes. It is ambitious, but there's a great potential for success."

Steve Thompson, regional boss of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is credited with inspiring the coalition. In 2004, when he first came to Sacramento, he met separately with ranchers and environmentalists.

He got an earful about perceived inadequacies of federal environmental law. He challenged them to draft position papers on their environmental priorities, which he later shared with the other side.

"I kept saying, 'I understand what you're against. What are you for?' " Thompson said. "It turned out both the cattlemen and the environmental groups had a tremendous amount of overlap. It didn't surprise me, but I think it surprised them."

The groups later met for a barbecue on a ranch in Sunol in August 2005. The discussion continued a few months later at the cattlemen's annual conference, including a panel discussion called "Boots and Birkenstocks" focusing on common ground.

By January 2006, the resolution was signed and an agenda began to take shape. The Fish and Wildlife Service and cattlemen kicked in money to hire a full-time employee to staff the effort, and environmental groups are raising money to hire another.

It's all a dramatic reversal from rangeland conflict in the 1990s.

"A lot of it had to do with miscommunication, a lack of understanding and just not sharing information with each other," said Tracy Schohr, director of rangeland conservation at the cattlemen's association _ and the first staffer hired by the coalition. "By working together, we can achieve so much more than going on parallel tracks."

(The Sacramento Bee's Matt Weiser can be reached at mweiser@sacbee.com.)

By KATY BISHOP
Scripps Howard News Service
Monday, May 07, 2007

Authorities cordoned off 300 feet of Naples beach and urged swimmers to avoid the water near the Edgewater Beach Hotel Monday after a shark bit a 68-year-old German man.

The man, who was swimming north parallel to the beach about 300 feet out, felt something bump his left leg, but the water was murky and he didn't see anything, said Ginger Jones with Naples Police Special Services Division. Once he swam ashore he saw a large semi-circular bite above his knee.

He walked about 100 yards north along the shore, leaving smears of blood on the sand.

A worker at the hotel saw the bleeding man and immediately called 911, said Courtney Giammaria, an Edgewater spokeswoman.

Emergency Medical Services said the bite was serious, but not life threatening, Jones said. He was taken to NCH Naples Downtown Hospital where he was treated for the wounds.

Bites in Collier County are rare. Monday's attack would be only the eighth in the county since 1882, based on information from the International Shark Attack File.

As the Gulf of Mexico warms above 70 degrees in the late spring, sharks and their prey meander from their winter feeding grounds in Florida Bay to Florida's west coast, said Bob Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota.

Hueter cast doubt on initial reports that the culprit was a 6-to-8-foot bull shark. When the broad, heavy-looking species bites a human, the wounds tend to be severe or fatal. Authorities on the scene described the man's injuryMonday as not life-threatening.

"The problem with bulls is they will go after larger prey items and while people are not on that list, sometimes they get in the way,"Hueter said.

Other sharks that can be found this time of year near the beach and are known to have attacked or bitten humans include black tips, lemon sharks and hammerheads. That the man suffered only one bite also is inconsistent with a bull shark bite, Hueter said, adding that bulls typically try to feed on their victims.

If several sharks are feeding, it is possible that more than one attack may occur at the same beach. But typically one shark bite does not necessarily beget another, Hueter said.

"It's very similar to lightning strikes" he explained.

To avoid a run-in with a shark, experts suggest that swimmers:

1. Avoid wearing flashy jewelry, which may catch a shark's attention.

2. Steer clear of brightly colored swimsuits.

3. Stay away from areas where people are fishing.

4. Swim near a lifeguard.

5. Avoid swimming in waters that are murky.

6. Do not go off on your own.

7. Avoid swimming at dusk or night, when sharks feed.

8. Look for signs of bait fish (which resemble dark clouds in the water), large fish splashing around or birds diving into the water from the air as these are signs that a shark's prey are in the area.

Source: sharksurvivor.com

By GEORGE BRYSON
Anchorage Daily News
Monday, May 07, 2007

Imagine three-fourths of the land mass of Alaska disappearing in a decade. That's roughly the amount of sea ice that has vanished from the Arctic ice cap in recent years _ and now it's melting faster.

So say two new reports from ice experts last week that climate-change scientists consider troubling, since sea ice keeps the Earth cool. An ice-free ocean warms it up.

One report noted there was less Arctic sea ice in April than had ever been recorded that month since satellite imagery of the northern ocean began in 1979. Another found that the melting of the Arctic ice cap is proceeding faster than anyone expected.

That second finding _ announced jointly by scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the National Center for Atmospheric Research _ concludes that all the summer Arctic sea ice should disappear "about 30 years" sooner than mainstream climate models earlier predicted.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, widely regarded as the gold standard for such projections, had estimated that summer sea ice in the Arctic probably declined at a rate of 2.5 percent a decade from 1953 to 2006. At that rate, the IPCC said, the summer ice cap would disappear sometime between 2050 and next century.

That estimate reflected the average of 18 separate IPCC climate scenarios, the most pessimistic of which placed the rate of ice shrinkage at 5.4 percent a decade.

But newly available data, "blending early aircraft and ship reports with more recent satellite measurements," show that the September ice actually declined at a rate of about 7.8 percent per decade from 1953 to 2006, the ice data center reported in a press statement.

"Because of this disparity, the shrinking of summertime ice is about 30 years ahead of the climate model projections," said NSIDC scientist and co-author Ted Scambos.

That means the summer ice cap could disappear earlier than 2050. If it does, scientists say, the Earth will begin warming much more rapidly _ as the Arctic Ocean begins to soak up all of the sun's rays without the protective shield of the ice cap to bounce them back into space.

In Alaska, polar bears would lose the summer ice floes they depend upon to hunt for seals. Instead, they'd have to find food on the mainland. But that might be the least of the Earth's ills. If a rapidly warming climate causes major portions of Greenland or Antarctica to melt, the rising sea level would drown low-lying seaports and communities all around the world. Portions of Manhattan and the coast of Florida would disappear.

Drastic sounding scenarios such as those grew only more credible last week as scientists who measure the Arctic ice reported a new low for the month of April. Satellite imagery that can peer through clouds found only 13.9 million square kilometers of ice.By comparison, the long-term average April ice pack (measured from 1979 to 2000) is about 15 million square kilometers. The difference between that and this April _ 1.1 million square kilometers _ represents the loss of an area of ice more than 1 1/2 times the size of Texas. Or three-fourths the area of Alaska.

Daily News reporter George Bryson can be reached at gbryson(at)adn.com.

By JIM SANDERS
Sacramento Bee
Monday, May 07, 2007

Lawmakers are poised to make it official: No more idiots, lunatics or imbeciles _ in California's law books.

Not everyone is a genius, perhaps, but pending legislation would ensure that nobody is a dunce in the eyes of the law.

The bill would remove from old statutes words that are derogatory now but once were commonly used to describe people with mental disabilities.

"Language matters _ and they're absolutely hurtful," said Democratic state Sen. Darrell Steinberg. "I cringe even repeating them."

The legislation, by GOP Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa, was approved unanimously last week by the Assembly Judiciary Committee.

LaMalfa said the words reflect how society, its popular speech and its insults have changed through the generations.

Webster's New World Dictionary defines an "idiot" as someone with an IQ of less than 25, while an "imbecile's" score is 25 to 50.

But most Americans, perhaps, now think of an idiot as a tailgating driver or someone who throws litter onto a pristine beach, for example.

"I think it's time to change the code," LaMalfa said.

Under the measure, idiots no longer would be one of six classes of people incapable of committing crimes _ the exception would apply to the "mentally incapacitated."

Similarly, incurable "imbecility" would not be deemed a total disability, but incurable "mental incapacity" would.

The crime of soliciting "lunatics or idiots" to break laws would be eliminated, but the same penalty would apply for enticing "persons who are mentally incapacitated."

Frances Gracechild, executive director of Resources for Independent Living in Sacramento, applauded the bill but said actions are more important than words.

"I actually can be forgiving of words," she said. "Actions often bother me more. It's like, you can call me anything you want, but don't not give me the job because I'm disabled. Know what I mean?"

Gracechild noted that "idiots" and "lunatics" are not the first labels to draw wrath. "Retarded," "crippled," "handicapped" and "disabled" also have been replaced through the years by more neutral terms for people with disabilities.

"I always err on the side of: The people who live with that label get to decide what the best terminology is," she said.

Teresa Favuzzi, director of the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers, said changing the way that institutions use offensive language is a first step toward changing attitudes.

"I think people genuinely want to treat people with respect," she said. "But when (hurtful) language like this is perpetuated, that's what people hear and that's what people use."

(The Sacramento Bee's Jim Sanders can be reached at jsanders@sacbee.com.)

By BILL SCHACKNER
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Monday, May 07, 2007

University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown students who want to drink hard liquor while showing collegiate pride can buy shot glasses bearing their school's name on the branch campus here.

The bookstore sells them for $3.99. It stocks beer posters, too.

The store even carries a poster of actor John Belushi, the word "COLLEGE" displayed over his chest, a nod to the 1978 "Animal House" movie that romanticized "party-till-you-drop" debauchery.

But all spring long, in a crackdown decried by some students as Big Brotherish, those same glasses and any poster advertising alcohol could mean a $50 fine if plainly visible in a dorm room from a window or hallway.

"The school can make money from them, but we can't display them where people can see them," said Tom Belli, 22, a junior from New Kensington, Pa. "It's a bit of a double standard."

And it's not the only student complaint as yet another college attempts to curb hard partying.

Under new rules, any student group at Johnstown throwing a weekend party with alcohol must submit a guest list by noon Thursday to an administrator who reviews it and places the guests' names on file indefinitely. Nothing stronger than beer can be brought to the parties, and no more than a six-pack per legal adult.

The school, which says it's had one too many close calls with alcohol poisoning, even takes a position on party snacks, saying non-salty food must be available all party long.

Campus officials make no apologies for the rules, hardly a prohibition but a stark change for the school's 3,100 students. Administrators point to early signs of success.

Johnstown, on paper anyway, used to have a policy that campus parties were alcohol-free, but it was rarely enforced, said Jerry Samples, vice president for academic and student affairs. So there was little control over consumption and underage drinking at rowdy parties that sometimes ballooned in size past fire-code limits.

Now, with the first semester under the new policy complete, incident reports suggest that vandalism is down, as are cases in which male students "get their beer muscles on with all the altercations and fights," said Jonathan Wescott, director of housing and residence life.

Far from being the thought police, the school is entitled to curb alcohol-related displays, including beer posters, in dorms that it owns if the wrong message is being sent, Samples said.

"You can't be a freshman and have a window full of empty beer cans," he said. "That's kind of counterintuitive to the law that says you can't drink unless you're 21 years old."

The policy is still evolving, Wescott said, and it may make sense to approach the bookstore about removing the shot glasses and other alcohol-related items. Nevertheless, say school officials, by adopting practices already used at some other schools, including Pitt's main campus, Pitt-Johnstown is keeping its students safer and reducing liability.

"It's been a shift in culture," Wescott said. "But it's one that had to be made."

Some students, though, remain unhappy, especially with the party rules.

They say smaller turnouts this spring show that students who are unable to get on a guest list are going home or elsewhere to party.

If colleges nationwide have not stopped dangerous partying, it isn't for lack of initiatives.

They have tried everything from random police patrols inside fraternity houses to marketing campaigns that tell students most of their peers do not drink excessively.

Sometimes changes follow a major embarrassment, a booze-fueled street disturbance after a football game or, as was the case with Duke University last year, a national media frenzy stemming from a party with lacrosse players and a stripper's charge of sexual assault.

Other times, schools gradually conclude that something is wrong with the campus culture when ambulances are a regular sight on big party weekends.

The University of Colorado at Boulder has instituted what students dubbed a "two-strike" policy in which a second alcohol-related offense as minor as holding an open container of beer can bring a semester-long suspension with no refund for tuition or fees.

The University of Massachusetts at Amherst sees itself as an institution on the rise academically. So street disturbances and other party woes that cemented its "ZooMass" nickname clearly are out of sync with current goals.

Its efforts range from stepped-up municipal- and campus-police enforcement to letting landlords check if a student had disciplinary problems while living in a dorm, meaning an alcohol infraction could make it harder to rent off-campus.

But national data show the problem is hard to overcome, and even a school with elaborate plans can't necessarily stop a student on a weekend night from drinking himself into the hospital or worse.

"You can't give into those thoughts of futility," said UMass director of community relations Martha Nelson Patrick. "Where would we be if we weren't doing anything? I think it would be pretty grim."

(Bill Schackner can be reached at bschackner(at)post-gazette.com.)