News Addition; News Addition Segments

F ... ... ... ... Very difficult to heal.

That was Friday just so having to beat a 13th and it was the conclusion of the night and we saw this car. We made a U-turn and we got behind it. We were following them down and they wouldn't stop. We went in high pursuit that ultimately ended in tragedy.

Nathaniel White was lucky to survive that accident. The two officers riding in the front seat didn't. Lisa Sandell and Mark Fleming died January 13th, 1989. White, a police trainee assigned to ride along and observe, is still recovering from his injuries. My jaw was broken here. I messed up. So I'm thinking it's in my wrist, pretty, pretty, you know, pretty bad. My intestines had blown a hole and my chest was with the, like they said, cartilage and my chest right here was messed up pretty bad, you know, and I got banged around my head and stuff.

You're trying to give it your best there, okay, so you're ready to begin. Physically, I think that, like now, when I do things, you know, when I walk, I used to jog a whole bunch of stuff and I don't, but like when I walk now and even in the toward the evening as the day goes on, my back burns a whole life. My wrist now is, you know, I can't do a whole lot with it because it just gives out. White's condition is a sharp contrast to his days as a football player at the University of Arkansas. And the turnover, a Nate White Interception of Kevin Murray gave the hogs the ball at midfield. Nathaniel White was a top athlete known for his speed, agility and hard work. A 1982 graduate of Wilmer Hutchins High School, he was a star quarterback, class officer and a good student.

The way Coach Harry Given sees it, White had everything it takes to be a fine police officer. I feel that Nathaniel wouldn't make a very good one because he's always been a person that was concerned for others and very unselfish. In his 16 weeks at the Academy, White had distinguished himself. Nathaniel was looked upon as somewhat as an informal leader of his class. He was very good academically and physically. From what I understand, he was probably in about the top 5% of his class in both of those categories. He seemed to have a positive attitude or a nice guy. White is married and has an 8-year-old son. The injuries from the accident are not limited to his body. Doctors say the trauma to his head has damaged his brain. Nathaniel's wife says he is forgetful and has trouble concentrating. He misplaces things, puts something down, can't locate it a few minutes later.

Just things in that area sometimes when we're out driving, he tends to where are we going which way. He has had progressive improvement ever since he's been on to my care. Dr. William Larkin is one of several doctors treating Nathaniel White. In my opinion, it is possible for him to return and be a police officer. I cannot give a date at this time and time will tell that. In January, the Dallas Police Department decided time was up. Nathaniel received a letter saying he had been fired. Nathaniel needed to either return to work or file for a disability pension if he could not return to work or communicate with us what was going on with his medical situation and let us know what the possibilities are. Nathaniel White did not return to work because he was still injured.

His lawyers say the city has medical records to document that. They got copies of all the medical records. They paid the medical bills. They got copies of the psychological, the psychiatric records, the neurological records. They got all of those and they paid the bills and then forwarded a copy to us. So all he had to do was open the file on Nathaniel White and read it if he wanted to know anything about his medical condition. Oliver claims White failed to answer phone calls and correspondence that he simply cut off all contact with the police department. Without any communication at all, we're kind of in limbo. Nobody knows what's going on and there comes a point again where you just you have to take some kind of action. They will call in pressuring him practically on a daily basis. We need you to provide us with this. We need you to confirm this. We're trying to build a criminal case on so and so and so and we want you to do this that and the other. To the point that it was hindering his recovery and put him in a severe state of nervousness.

The lawyers persuaded White to let them take over communications with the city. And that's the mere 12 of them. This is a July 26 letter. Their file show five letters and a thick notebook of medical records that the city received during the time Oliver claims White was not communicating. All the while, White assumed he'd be able to finish the academy when he recovered. It was not like I had been trained in the academy. They trained us that how criminal elements would end our career if they had the opportunity. But they did not train us that the city would also do the same if they had to. I think they're on the job.

I think that it was bad faith on their part to terminate him in that manner. Other injured officers have been able to return to light duty assignments. The department claims that's not an option for White because he never finished his training. If a recruit gets injured in training, there is a certain amount of liability that the city shares and compensates that person for that in the form of placing them on a disability and paying them whatever the extent of their disability is. So it's not as if we cast them out to the side and say, too bad you got injured here. We don't care about you anymore. That's not what we do. Police officers do receive disability benefits which are more generous than those available to civilian employees. White is now applying for a disability pension equal to 60% of his salary. He also received salary and benefits from the State Workers' Compensation Board. But the city filed suit to get that award reduced.

The dispute was settled out of court. They had a police officer that had been seriously injured and they really were not interested in his rehabilitation and the healing of his wounds when they were concerned about their liability on a worker's compensation claim. It's cold you'll have that jacket on there and you're police jacket. Last week the police quartermaster called and asked White to turn in his uniforms. In January 13, 1989 a lot of things happened that changed my life. I was in pursuit of my dream and trying to make my contributions to society and so was two other people that I was with, that I was trapped in a car with for 20 minutes who ultimately because of the chase, that their career ended that night. The people who fired me they were just doing their job.

I think that Mark and Lisa and myself, you know, well, we were doing our job too. Country living, that's what people get when they move to Alvarado. Farms but comfortable homes on a few acres.

On the town square you'll find a few businesses but there's almost no industry in Alvarado and that means a tiny tax base. Real estate agent Mike Richardson says Alvarado homeowners pay a price for their serene surroundings. Our school tax rate is real high. I think we're the highest in the county to be able to have what facilities we have in all of the programs we do have for our children. It's been a burden on these small property owners to be able to pay the taxes on the base that we have. Linda Chote owns a restaurant and a home in Alvarado. Her school tax rate is $1.15 for $100 valuation. That's well above the state average of 95 cents. Last year my school taxes were $800 and $60 something dollars on this little building here and at home they were almost $400 so I don't see how I don't see how they can raise the taxes anymore and if they do I don't see how the people are going to pay

and I think the people are going to end up in trouble if they do. Even with the high taxes the school district doesn't have the money it says it needs to offer a top-notch education. Carla Davidson is the senior class valedictorian. She expects to be behind when she enters the pre-med program at Texas A&M next year. I've always felt that there's always more that I could learn that I haven't been exposed to because we don't have the facilities and the learning programs that we should. Do you think you would have gotten a better education in another school district? Yes. I do. At a larger school. Do you feel that you feel very strongly about that? Yes. I've talked to friends that went to other schools in Arlington and Fort Worth and things like that that have more with more money in their income in their school and they talk about dissecting cats and things like that. We haven't had the opportunity.

I mean we're stuck with crickets because that's all we can afford seriously. We think the students are getting them a good education in size but it's certainly not what they deserve and what they would probably need to compete with the students from Richardson and playing on Holland Park. Superintendents Sid Pruitt wrestles with a budget that gives him $2,660 per student. That's less than half what Highland Park spends. In Alvarado our pay just above the state minimum and receive no health insurance. Experienced teachers like Art Rasmussen are constantly tempted to move to nearby districts where the pay is better. I have considered it but I like my position here so I've stayed. Despite the money. Despite the money. I do other things outside to help supplement but that's only a little bit here and there. What kinds of things?

I do work. Computer consultation. I see you have to moon like. Yeah. It's almost a requirement. I don't think I can probably survive without it. Once Alvarado pays its teachers the superintendent says there's little money left for support staff. The high school has one guidance counselor. Teachers fill in the gaps. It's not uncommon to come in and have students crying saying they need help or they need someone to just listen. Are you trained to deal with those problems? With those problems? I'm not. How do you do it? Well I have it. I listen and many times I will go to the principal and ask his advice or the vice principal. Do you ever feel like you're doing things and giving advice that you're not qualified to do? I think we all do that. Well this is tight and I think as you can see that we have top riders, some are older style than others.

Every year Alvarado tries to find more money for modern equipment but every year it falls short. Most of the facilities for extracurricular activities are makeshift at best. The track team practices on a vacant field because there isn't a suitable running track. I see no reason that our students here should not have the same amount of money allocated for their science projects or whatever they need as the students in Dallas or Fort Worth or wherever. The people of Alvarado are tired of making do with less. The district is one of the plaintiffs in the school finance case seeking to share the wealth with property rich schools. It's a problem I guess for former's branch in Plano and Highland Park. When you get used to living a certain standard and having availability of funds to travel and go visit other school districts and have all the technology you need and high salaries, it's difficult to come down from that.

And what we want is to keep them where they are but yet let our teachers and children and taxpayers experience what they've been experiencing for years and years. The lifestyle of Highland Park is exclusive boutiques, whining and dining, a life of leisure. The average price for a home is just under $400,000.

Many homes cost considerably more. Only 23% of Park City's residents have children. Still, the district has a reputation for its commitment to superior schools. The Highland Park independent school district spends over $4,800 a year per student, well above the state average. Many parents oppose plans to take Highland Park tax dollars and give them to poorer school districts. I feel like the whole state needs to be responsible for the so-called poorer districts to bring them up, not to bring us down because we strive for good education in this area and we don't want to be leveled down to an average level. School property taxes in Highland Park are currently $0.59 per $100 valuation. That's the lowest rate among Metroplex school districts. If the tax might triple under an education reform bill, 60% of those tax dollars would

be sent out of the district. And I truly believe that if we work together as a community, we can come out victorious. Our taxes will be higher assuredly, but the key issue is not only taxes in Austin today, but is the ability to control our own destiny. This month's school board meeting was standing remotely, homeowners and parents alike were looking for answers. I hear everybody here support all your efforts, but if we do get a bad law out of Austin, will the district sponsor a lawsuit to fight such a bad law? I think we should pursue all means, including legal means, to ensure that we have the prerogative to provide the quality of public education that we believe the students and parents of Highland Park are very right to be afforded. We make significant sacrifices for being in this school district. I almost take exception to what the state calls us, a wealthy school district, and who of all those sacrifices we make for our children and our lifestyle.

And I know as well as you know that when you go down there representing the Highland Park, you don't get a lot of sympathy. It's hard for some districts to sympathize with Highland Park when the school system has so much. The high school boasts a $3 million state of the art science wing. It houses 10 classrooms and 10 labs. Computer labs are part of the curriculum from elementary through high school classes. Each of the district's six schools receives state or national recognition in 1990. Student test scores far exceed national averages. What we are trying to do in the schools that we represent is to keep them from running the quality school systems in the state. Attorney Earl Luna represents Highland Park and 10 other wealthy districts.

Four schools have challenged the state's education funding policies. They want to equalize education spending. Luna believes poor districts are entitled to more money, but he says wealthy districts shouldn't be penalized in the process. Somehow we're going to have to decide what is the reasonable cost of an education. And that reasonable cost must be made available to these school districts because we should furnish a public education for our students. But then if given people want to enrich that in a given area, they ought to be able to do it. Open it up to the confidence and y'all check each other out for sure you see the difference between our mail and a female. No one here is worried that the science lab or other quality programs will be scaled back if reform measures pass a legislature. Use the clues like you did before, you know. What worries Highland Park residents is that a new taxing structure will eventually limit growth in their schools.

The cable kids network was launched in November by the Dallas School District and cable access of Dallas. The students put together a 30-minute show every six weeks. Very few things in their lives when you're in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade, can you be really involved in an adult world. But when they can work with cable access, they see what a real-life television production can be like and it makes them feel proud of themselves.

On the cable kids network, you'll find what's news to students in grades four through six. In this thing, we were talked to today about the mail influence in our schools. The program explores social issues and profiles the talents of local students. This episode features a performance by the third grade choral group from the Dunbar Learning Center. It also showcases winners from the oratorical contest at elementary learning centers throughout the city. I like because I get to learn more about working on television and working on the cameras. I like working on a lot, just learning that what it is behind the cameras when you watch

it on TV. Children don't see a lot of blacks in Spanish on television. So they see themselves on set and they see themselves working on the cameras, then they get into the habit that they can become those people when they get older. Where are you learning from it? How to do different things when I grow up, I really have something that I really have experience in. I really want them to become comfortable in front of the camera. I want them to learn that what's most important is being able to express themselves, to show that they are thinking and to be able to express those thoughts in orally. The most important rule of the year is to pronounce and project.

Each school had oratorical contestants. We want to congratulate all of them. It takes a lot of courage to stand up before a crowd and speak. I know that what appears to be natural on the television screen isn't really natural. It's the result of a lot of hard work and speech work and that's why I work with the boys and girls because I feel like to bring out the very best in them that they really do need some coaching and working with. But then of course, once that technical part is over, then I like their naturalness to shine through and I think it does. At the practice you put and make sure you project into the audience and you will be loud and clear. Practice, huh? So, you want me being a sing-up on TV. Say bye, bye, bye, don't say. It's kind of fun because when you move around, you take a quad on a set and five, four, three, two, one. Okay, let's get back some more. When you're involved, then you're really alive.

You're really a person. If you're involved with some capacity, too many kids just sit home and watch TV and these kids are making television. It's not really dry, but I mean, that's what they're doing. This next door lives with a day of dream play. Linda Finnell and Julie Cohn are two women boxing. Inside their deep-elim studio, they're knocking out boxes, picture frames and books.

You know, these books are really, really handmade books. They're not like handmade and some kind of factory somewhere or something. And the detailing on our books could not be done on machines. Two women boxing was born when a Houston photographer commissioned artist Linda Finnell to make boxes for artist portfolios. She asked her best friend and fellow artists, Julie Cohn, for help. The day we delivered the boxes, we took a picture of ourselves in my living room where we could done all the work with just these boxes stacked up all around us. And one of us or the other, and we never can relate the side here. She thinks it was her. It probably was. Said, if we ever have a business, let's call it two women boxing. The two were frustrated by the uncertain financial rewards offered by the gallery scene. So they channeled their creative energy into a retail business. We never thought it would be the way it is right now. I think we really thought it would be the Julie and Linda club forever. Eight years later, the company started by two women with only $400 and no business experience

gross nearly half a million dollars. We're sort of like a runaway train here. I mean, there are still major parts of the United States that we're not even representative. We're terrible. We want to represent us in Europe and Canada and Japan. And we're holding back a little bit this year. Today, Finell and Cone concentrate on the day-to-day details of the business while creating new products. Their designs are sold at Neemans, Barney, Stanley Coreshack, and other upscale retail stores. We assume that people are going to like our taste. We design a book. It's kind of scary. We order. We're ordering most of our papers directly from Japan. It takes them three to four months to get here. We have to order enough on speculation to make a book that we design. And there's a risk that people might like it. Yeah. That that combination is not going to work. I'm having a hard time seeing this in our line in the spring, unless it was for any baby book or something. But I think that we took a sort of a different kind of aesthetic and mixed sort of Eastern Western sensibilities together to sort of Eastern papers and try to combine them instead

of Western techniques and bookbinding. And also I think a lot of our things have a sense of airling about them, a sense of books that will be kept for a long period of time. A ballerina, a poet, and a future Peace Corps volunteer are among the eclectic group of women who make up the all-female production line. Each woman works at her own pace and even schedules her own ship. You keep saying you've got something for me. A funky selection of music provides creative inspiration as the 14 women handcraft every one-of-a-kind item. I think this is sort of unconsciously a very woman oriented, women do hand work. They do a lot of peace work and I think that that has been why women have gravitated to working here more than men have. And you know, it's certainly no overt discrimination or anything on our part. And there's just a real camaraderie between these women that I think is really important.

It's more, it's like a real family. I don't think there's as much competition. It's more caring and people are more willing to do their part. Basically, it's a very democratic situation to be working in more so than anywhere else I've ever worked. My philosophy, absolutely, on this business is run a business where I'd want to work. Because everyone here is responsible for making the policies of the company and they're responsible for creating the atmosphere in which they want to work. Weekly staff meetings provide employees with the opportunity to make suggestions. Everybody puts in an evaluation on whoever's being evaluated. It's everybody feels that some sort of question there about your strong points of weak points. It's been one of the hardest things to do in the business has been to be an employer. And to try and play out both sides of what it must feel like to be, you know, the person who's trying not to hand down rules but to create structure and that's been really hard.

Instead of just being, like, doing me, evaluating all that what we have is feedback from everybody in the studio and that it not be, like Robyn said in the minutes, it's not a grand session but it's just to get some concept of what it's like for other people to work with you in the studio. Vannell and Cohn never had a master plan for building a company, yet they've managed to successfully craft a business as individual as their handmade designs. To think that I can come up with a seat of an idea and incorporate my best friend and be able to be around materials that I love and create a workplace that I can be totally myself in and create, you know, just create my life the way I want it to be. I mean all the stores that I'd ever want to be, as if I were an artist and all the galleries I ever wanted to be, we've gotten all the praise for a business that I could ever have hoped to have gotten.

We do good work, we sell it, it has an end user who appreciates it. I mean the success of it has been really rewarding to me. Eddie Hernandez was 16 years old when we met him. He was overcoming his inhaled addiction with his family support. I think we helped out that they took it out to me a lot, every time trying to know what I heard and heard, I guess they were talking about it a lot and started getting into my mind.

In the years since, Eddie had been in and out of trouble, but lately things were looking up. Three weeks ago Hernandez went to Addamson High School and Dallas's Oak Cliff neighborhood to pick up his girlfriend. He waited for her at a laundromat near the school. A little after four o'clock on March 22nd, witnesses say Eddie Hernandez exchanged insults with some boys driving by in a car. At 420, the boys drove by again and shot Eddie twice. He died 40 minutes later. My first reaction was hate and anger, you know. He was 21 years old, he had a whole life ahead of it. He had planned to be married during the summer. He had been trying to get his life together, it seemed like he was accomplishing it. And then all of a sudden, he's dead. I mean, just because somebody else wanted to pick up a gun and shoot somebody, he's lying on the street dead. Eddie's death was also hard on his friends.

He had become their big brother. They listened to Eddie because he knew about prison and drugs. They said, you know, Eddie was a cool dude. If he would talk to us and he'd tell us, he'd say, don't get into games, man, that's no good. All you do is going to get in trouble or get killed. Hernandez came close to death once before when he was stabbed in September. That didn't change his life. Prison dead. Eddie was sent to a prison boot camp last winter for breaking into a car to steal a football. When he got out in January, he joined alcoholics anonymous and started going to church. Eddie somehow always survived his troubles until the fatal shooting. In my mind, I know he's dead, but in my heart, I don't want to know. I want him to come home. Rain couldn't sway the determination of West Alice residents who took to the streets in

early April. They wanted the world to see their anger and frustration over conditions in their neighborhood. They believed their homes are contaminated. The problem is they don't clean this pollution and there's a lot of kids that go to school where they right there by my house is a school. In bed, that school where they build that school, it was a dump. The problem stems from a rapid growth of heavy industry in West Alice. Most of the city's industry is concentrated here. Much of the city's pollution is also found here. Many residents believe emissions from those plants have affected their health. And I was upset because all my neighbors were getting sick, you know, now I'm mad because

now it hit home, now it, and the worst of all is that they don't pay attention to us. Most of Julie's family is sick, nosebleed, asthma, bronchitis, strokes, cancer. It's so simple, we just want to breathe clean air and to give us some make a lot of tension because little by little, we're dying, we're just like a joke, who is next. So Poverty's son is organizing efforts to get the city to clean up contamination in West Alice. He holds the city responsible for the problems caused by the mix of industry and homes. The city allowed it to come into this community, the city allowed to have a housing projects built in this area, the city allowed, you know, everything to this point right now, the city should be responsible, the city should have taken automatically steps to look into this problem.

Anything they've done to this point, we forced them. The people in these communities have a feeling that the city does not have the level of interest in protecting their best interests that it could have. And I don't think that's true, I know it's not true on the part of the Environmental Health Advisory Commission. Victoria Argenta is an engineer at UTA. He chairs a special city committee to look into the West Alice environment. I don't know that we can make much of a decision about anything else we'd like to do until we have an idea of what the problems are in the areas. The committee met for the first time this week. Its initial goal is to tour the neighborhood and hear directly from its residents. It might be interesting to have a match that would show what areas are industrial areas now so that we can get some idea before we drive through what type of areas are coming from. We can manage it from a zoning standpoint. Until now these residents have felt ignored. They say city officials haven't responded to previous invitations. They're eager to tell their painful stories about living near factories.

I feel like it's cut off my life, you know, cut off my chair and tell you're up in the life. And they've had to put a block in our life. They've destroyed my family. They've been destroyed. Argento says complaints from residents may be justified yet difficult to resolve. What may be an annoyance or a nuisance to people living in an industrial area might still be a condition that is in total compliance with all of the environmental regulations. The city currently has some air quality testing in place in West Dallas. These samplers are located on the roof of the West Dallas Boys Club. They're capable of measuring even the smallest quantities of particles in the air. This one measures lead levels. This city forced the RSR lead smelter to close in 1984 after repeated violations of lead emission limits.

But many residents still blame the now idle facility and emissions from other industrial plants for their health problems. Smoke stacks from the smelter and other industries dot the West Dallas landscape. The modest homes of lifelong residents are tucked in their midst. People who live here say if they had money and different color skins they wouldn't have to live with factories too close for comfort. Argento says those feelings aren't off base. It's not good when private residents is particularly or even multifamily dwellings and perhaps in the worst case low income housing is moved into an industrial area because particularly in the case of low income housing frequently those folks feel like they don't have much protection from government anyway and they feel like they've kind of been misused when they're put into areas like that. These problems aren't limited to West Dallas. Similar situations can be found in cities across the country.

Local zoning boards have allowed industry and housing to exist side by side. Many of these neighborhoods are home to low income minorities. I have seen that happen before and we have worked very hard in the Environmental Health Commission now to make a evaluation of the area a priority before a zoning change takes place that could cause something like that to happen again. Argento's concern doesn't calm the anxiety of families like the supporters. They paid for soil samples and other tests at their home. Those showed high concentrations of lead and other chemicals. It's very alarm the test. In other way if I would have money I would move to another place because if the chemicals are in my house they are in my body and the body of my children. A chemical waste is burned inside huge kilns.

The temperature is 3,500 degrees and the company says more than 99% of the chemical waste is destroyed by the intense heat. But the process creates tons of residue known as cement kiln dust. This dust is dumped in the old limestone quarry behind the plant. Because the factory uses hazardous waste as fuel toxic metals like lead and arsenic are

mixed in with the dust. Over the last 16 months we have been testing dust out of our kilns each kiln on every shift so that's 21 samples of dust every week from from all four kilns. TXI says the metals and the dust are bound together chemically and cannot come apart. They put their dust samples in a jar of acid as a test. It's a good indication that the metals are bound up and they kill dust. And they can't leave it. And they cannot leach out that's correct. Environmentalists don't believe it. Jim Shermback of the group Texans united went to collect his own dust samples from the quarry. We took up the invitation of the cement companies they printed ads in the newspaper and told people around town. You know if you don't believe us that this stuff is harmless then come on and take your own samples and use your own lab to find out and that's exactly what we did.

Shermback sent his samples to a lab in Boston which did a different kind of test. He says this test revealed high levels of toxic metals in the dust pile at the quarry. Shermback also tested the water in local creeks. When these metals come in this dust out of the kiln they are probably bonded together. But the longer the dust and ash sits out in the open where the wind and rain can affect it the more that dust breaks down and the more those metals break down. And as a result metals flow into the water with each rainfall and that rainfall and that water flow right through here on its way eventually to Joe Pull Lake. The assumption that some people take a make about the bonding process is that the metals are free and just glued onto the dust particles that are collected out of the back end of the kiln.

That's not true. And as a result where some contend that over time water will wash away the limestone and you have an increasing concentration of metals that doesn't happen. Well if it was bound up in the dust the way that they claim that it is we wouldn't have been able to find the level of metal contamination in the runoff water that we found. It would have been staying there in the quarry instead of running downhill with the water. Texas industry says Schurmbäck is wrong because rainwater here collects in a small lake and never leaves the quarry. The company also says environmentalists are using the wrong kind of lab tests to evaluate the risks of cement kiln dust. But Schurmbäck is convinced this dust pile is affecting the water near the plant. He says he'll file a lawsuit to force an end to the dumping of cement kiln dust that's produced while the plant is burning toxic waste as fuel. Every year in open oil pits require a run-by-dial.

The whales are mammals and are the biggest animals on earth. The whales need help. I know that whales come up to breed because I've seen them on videos. The whales and children's art are all smiles. But those the kids see through the media are mainly in moments of crisis. The most recent whales to capture the world's imagination were the three gray whales trapped beneath the ice near Point Barrow, Alaska. Their dramatic rescue kept us captivated for ten days in fall of 1988.

Now just in time for Earth Day, the Dallas Children's Theatre presents Whale, a play which combines fact with fancy and myth with media. I think that this kind of play about whales is exactly the kind of material that Dallas Children's Theatre loves to present in that we see something about our world, about our environment and the importance of taking care of it and nurturing it. We also get a glimpse of another culture. This one is about the Eskimos that emit in Alaska. We are the people of the whale. We know that one morning we may go down to the edge of the ice, no longer hear the call of the whale, just a great ship to kill the whale. That is why we bring our story to you so that the whale that lives in our hearts will live also in the whales.

In the play Whale, I play Sedna, and she is the goddess of the sea. She starts out as an Alaskan girl. She was killed by her own people, thrown off a boat and as she hangs onto the boat, pieces of her fingers are chopped off at the joints. And as the pieces of her fingers fall into the sea, they become the fish and the next pieces of her fingers become the walruses and her thumbs become the whales. She drowns also and lives amongst them in the sea. The story of Whale combines the mythology of my character and the reality of the three gray whales that were trapped underneath the ice near Barrow, Alaska. What happens is one of those whales died and they say the Alaskan people say that Sedna took him because she didn't want the humans to have those three whales and that was the

only one she could get. The story of Whale combines the Inuit creation myth with our contemporary society, what's going on in our planet today. The Inuit believe that Sedna, the sea goddess, gives them their food. She gives them their land because Sedna as the goddess of sea is also the goddess of ice. In order for their lives to happen, they have to take care of their world. They have to take care of the ice and the ocean and take care of their goddess in order that she feed them and house them and close them. In this marriage of ancient myth with modern media, the three gray whales are trapped in Sedna's hair. I played the raven who was trying to get everybody to work together to free the whales and the story is in order for those whales to be freed, Sedna has to comb her hair.

And the raven is in love with her so if he can get to comb her hair, then the whales can go free. Allow the humans to free the whales, Sedna cried the raven, comb your hair, free them. The raven's rescue plan has to do with untangling international relations as well. What I'm trying to do visually is to imbue the children with a sense that they have the power to change, that they possess the magic that isn't necessary today to heal the earth, to heal the goddess. Yeah. We need help because they're becoming students. They're going to be endangered if we don't start doing something about it and start helping them.

Six hours old and already far behind, Mercedes weighs just four pounds. Her mother smoked crack cocaine throughout her pregnancy. We know that it causes birth defects. We know that it causes low birth weight.

We know that it causes decreased head circumference. We know that it causes neurobehavioral abnormalities in the newborn period. Mercedes is free of obvious birth defects. She'll need special care because she's so small. Researchers say one out of ten babies born in Dallas County is exposed to cocaine prenatally. 15% of them are profoundly disabled. The rest are like Mercedes. The cocaine has taken a more subtle toll. But automatically, my peaking her up, she does not like that. You see the back how she's arching out. Laquinta's behavior is typical of a crack baby. Medical researchers have found these infants are extremely irritable. Even loving hugs can send them into hysterics. She's got some major medical problems to go hand in hand with her results of her drug exposure. Laquinta is fed from a tube that goes directly to her stomach. Anything she takes through her mouth goes right to her lungs. A normal six-month-old would be able to sit up and play.

Laquinta can't even raise her head or grasp a toy. These babies are difficult and it's not just something that stops at a certain age. I mean, this is long, long term. She only weighs nine pounds. She's in therapy to help her catch up. Baby cat. Baby cat. OK. Turn around. Can we turn around? Developmental deficiencies are harder to find in two-and-a-half-year-old de-marcus. He is easily distracted and hyperactive. Social workers at this school for the developmentally disabled say his mother used crack when she was pregnant. So, he's two-and-a-half. So, he should be using phrases and sentences and have a larger vocabulary than he does now. When he started, he wasn't using any words other than like mama to get our attention. He knows. Where's your nose? These developmental delays and behavioral problems have been noted in many toddlers who were prenatally exposed to cocaine, but the experts can't say if it's caused by the cocaine or by living with an addict.

And if there's not adequate bonding between the mother and the infant, then as that child grows older, there's not going to be adequate interaction. That in itself could lead to what we see as learning deficits. It could lead to behavioral abnormalities. In general, bad parenting usually produces bad children. Bad child? Christ alone. Ruth Feldman trains healthcare workers so they can teach mothers how to handle their drug-exposed babies. The infants go home with their drug-abusing mothers unless there's more evidence that the home environment is dangerous. We see a lot of abuse. This children are the ones that we see especially from parents that are addicted, that are the children because of their difficult children. They tend to be abused, physically abused. Well, when I first got involved in drugs, I was about 11. Laurie, the mother of a three-year-old, is in drug rehab. She used speed and cocaine, but stopped after the fourth month of her pregnancy.

But I smoked pod and I drank the whole time. After the birth of her daughter, Jamie, she went back to the hard drugs. Do you think it's been hard on Jamie? Yes, it's been very hard on her. It's been very hard. The ones that I never paid attention to heard that my powder was more important. The whole time that I was pregnant and using, before I would use for anything, I used to pray a lot. I prayed that nothing would happen to my baby, that if anything was going to be wrong with him, that it'd be me and not him. Jackie is fighting a crack addiction. Her son, Patrick, is three years old. But Jackie has only lived with him for a couple of months at a time. He's been raised by relatives. I want you to show your life. It's ups and downs and significant factors that have influenced the way that you parent your children. These women are getting help in a program called nexus.

It's one of the few that has facilities for the children of drug addicts. Here helping the drug exposed children begins with helping their mothers become good parents. The dip that woman is a very sick, sick person that needs help. And this person, if we don't give a help, we're not going to only be seen one child. We're going to see three, four, five children from this woman and every child, her progression of her disease, would have advanced and every child probably would have been a will-be effect that in worse ways than the one we saw previously. Justin is the third child born to a drug-abusing mother. He ended up in a foster home when he was abandoned in the hospital just days after he was born. He is what Dean and I both call a fragile child. When he gets too much stimulation, it's like a physical problem for him. He's looking to go for a ride.

Justin is lucky. Many kids are abused before they're put in foster care. Justin has had a nurturing environment his whole life. Yet his foster parents notice he's not a normal little boy. He just kind of seems to hit him all at once and that's like being battered for his nerves and then he takes him a day or two to get over it. He has a hard time eating, he doesn't sleep well, he cries a lot, he's really sort of ill. We need to study them as they begin to reach school age. We need to see if the kinds of things that have been rumored are true. Are they behaviorally impaired? Are they hyperactive? Do they have learning difficulties? Those are the kinds of things that are still open issues. What's this? I get a duck, ducks live on farms. These kids were not drug exposed but their learning problems are similar to what Dallas school officials expect from crack kids. Next year this class will probably include crack exposed kindergarteners.

I read the literature and I hear horror stories about you know there's one everywhere you look. I haven't seen that yet. Pigs and cows and horses and sheep down Josh, down. Schools are trying to plan now for the special educational needs of crack kids but no one can say with certainty what those needs are. If they present new behaviors or new learning problems that we have not encountered before then we'll have to develop unique programs to respond to those needs. Since there is no blueprint school administrators will have to use trial and error to educate crack kids. Something's working for DeMarcus. Since he's been in speech therapy he's been catching up to other children his age. Justin is calming down. He's received constant attention from extremely patient foster parents.

Large numbers appear. Then we're not going to have enough teachers and money and we'll be a problem. This is the thing that I worry about the most. Next year the Dallas school district is expecting almost 11,000 kindergarteners. Please tell us at least 1,100 of them will be crack kids. Thanks a great job. China is separated from the West by natural barriers, and for centuries there was little

western influence in Chinese lives, their food, clothing, and medicine. For more than 2,000 years the Chinese have relied on the art of acupuncture to treat pain and illness. Now I'm going to give her some electric simulations. Acupuncture involves applying needles to different pressure points on the body. It is based on the Chinese theory of restoring the person's body balance and flow of energy, what the Chinese call Qi. Heady Sessions sought acupuncture treatment for brusitis from Williams-Dang, who received

his medical training in China. Surgery and medication didn't seem to help sessions. What Chinese believe disease occurs when energy flowing through various pathways in the body is interrupted. The idea is to remove the block and allow the body to heal itself. Put needle to certain point and open up the channel that China goes and improved it. The world health organization recognizes acupuncture's ability to treat more than 45 disorders, but Texas lawmakers have yet to recognize it as a medical profession. Acupuncturists

are not licensed as they are in 32 other states. Under current law, anyone practicing acupuncture in Texas must work under a doctor's supervision. Acupuncturists are not allowed to issue a medical diagnosis and treat patients independently. We would like to see what. We would like to see that we have freedom. Padi Kaim runs an acupuncture school in Fort Worth. We both, the acupuncturist and patients lack freedom in the United States. In acupuncture case, we would like to be able to diagnose and treat patients. A measure currently in the Texas legislature will do away with the requirement that a medical doctor supervise the acupuncturists. The bill would set up an independent licensing board and allow acupuncturists to treat patients for things like smoking addiction, weight loss and muscle relaxation. All other disorders would still require a doctor's diagnosis

and referral. But Dr. Adolf Gisiki thinks it's a bad idea. I practiced acupuncture for the management of chronic pain problems from about 1970 through about 1975. I gave it up because the success that I had with its use was very limited. I had an occasional spectacular success and everybody can quote an occasional case that has a dramatic cure. But from a scientific statistical point of view, it seemed to have little value. But acupuncture is gaining some acceptance in the Dallas-Bortorth Metroplex. Kaim who holds a medical degree in Taiwan opened the Bayesian School of Acupuncture two years ago. I have found a lot of patients, a lot of people are very interesting in this school. And most of them, they just sell their houses or they change quit their jobs and they go

to Florida, go to California, go to New Mexico and looking for acupuncture schools. The school offers three years of instruction in the classroom and in the clinic. Take the needles and first of all, you have to show your patient that the needles are sterilized and one-time use are disposable needles all the time when you need them. Remember, your technique to be very accurate. Again, acupuncture is not only sticking the needles somewhere, no. So you have to find the right front and hit the needle like a hand. Does it hurt? No, it doesn't hurt. I can't feel it. Okay. Instruction is difficult, but even harder for the graduating students will be finding a medical supervisor to oversee their work.

It's sometimes difficult because they have to know you very well and you have, you know, there's some responsibility and, you know, so I think sometimes I don't blame them if you call them and say, well, I have experience. They said, well, you know, we don't know you exactly. And some of them said, well, to be honest with you, I don't know, understand acupuncture. How can I survive you? When I came here before, 10 years ago, it's not many people. No, I can't. But now William Zhang treats more than 80 patients a week at his Fort Worth in Arlington offices. The legislative battle isn't expected to be resolved soon. It could be a long time before this ancient Chinese art takes a place beside traditional Western medicine in Texas. All right. Today we're going to talk about the superconducting super collider. The SSC

is a tool. Just like we use our pencils and our crayons and our scissors for tool scientists need a tool. Andrea to look at the animals. The superconducting super collider is supposed to be completed and working. The year Alita Mons kindergarten students enter the 10th grade. 35 miles south of Dallas in rural Ellis County, scientists will send proton speeding toward each other around a 53 mile underground tunnel. That's what the atoms do. And when they do, they break all apart. Like Lonnie fell down, part of the atom would fall off.

SSC researchers will study the collisions and atom particles to learn more about the structure of matter and the origins of the universe. The people of Ellis County were happy and grateful that they won the competition for the $8 billion project. They treated scientists like celebrities when they came to Dallas two years ago for a conference. The scientists took a bus ride to Ellis County. They went on a picnic, Texas style. They kind of need a Texas. It's really down right now. We need some of that and really packed it up. I think this is one of the best things that ever came to Texas. My children are young and I'm looking to see that the schools in Texas really improved with it. The people who come in have been fairly well educated. They demand better schools. The SSC's presence was supposed to strengthen education, increase business,

and improve property values at a time Texas was going through an economic slump. The expectations were that we wanted to win. It's kind of like a football game. Let's go team. Writer Tom Dodge lives in Midlothian, 10 miles west of the Collider Ring. He's written stories about the project and its effect on the people of Ellis County. He won something. Ain't that great? And that began to wear off after a while because they are not quite sure what it is exactly they won. The expected economic boom hasn't happened. The Collider was supposed to create work for 4,000 construction workers by this summer, currently up to 300 work on the project. Last year the Super Collider boosted Ellis County's economy by $17 million. Residents had expected two or three times that activity. The City of Ennis sits a few miles east of the Collider Ring. City manager Steve Howerton

helped bring the SSC to Ellis County. He was the first chairman of the Dallas Fort Worth SSC Authority. People thought that we would see an immediate economic benefit from the SSC and that the world would be the path to our door here in Ellis County and that just hasn't happened yet. Howerton says full-blown economic development is four or five years away. The first disappointment for Ellis County came seven months after the SSC site selection. The project's temporary offices opened not in Ellis County as expected, but next door in Dallas County. The next disappointment was that federal funding for the project was under attack in Congress. Our problem is simply a political problem and that is that Congress loves to invest in the next election, but Congress is not equally generous in investing in the next generation. The SSC may generate about $360 million in business this year for Ellis, Dallas and

Taran counties. Some of that is to come from contracts to small businesses. We will be purchasing everything from the day-to-day functions that you see up here in our support contracts. So far, 56% of the SSC's contracts have gone to out-of-state firms. Who works in tunnels besides scientists? Eight panties. In Ellis County, students have been the major beneficiaries of the SSC. Now the tunnels on top of the ground are under the ground. Under the ground. David Cochran is in a school superintendent. We've had somewhere in the neighborhood of about $240,000 donated dollars outside this year brought into our district because of the SSC. Foundation and Corporate Donations fund innovative science and math programs for Ellis County students. We hope that as we educate these children maybe one day they can return or stay with us from college and work in the SSC laboratories and help be the scientists and mathematicians

that will provide the labor force and the necessary to run the SSC. Because you work so hard for the SSC and because you believe in us, we'll make you an honorary kid for the SSC. Cute children remind America who may benefit from SSC research and who will pay for it. To prove how much they wanted the collider, three years ago, Texas voters approved a $1 billion bond package to help pay for the super collider. Last year, Texas dipped into that pot to make up for a $70 million cut in federal SSC funding. The project is two years behind schedule because Congress has been reluctant to give it full funding. Trying to be positive, local officials welcomed the SSC delays, saying explosive growth would have strained schools and public services. It's nice to see that impact strung out over a longer period of time and therefore diluted so that it's not as great at one time.

It's a bit likely down the road traction, saying the train is coming, it may be a long way off, but if you know it's there and it's coming, it's going to arrive. The first SSC land purchase happened last summer. It was a media event. This represents the first in over 1,260 parcels that will ultimately be acquired for this most important project. And this was the main campus for me. There's change in the hurry, don't they? Well, it may be a great thing for community, but it's not a great thing for us. We're going to lose everything we have. And we've been here 15 years and they're just going to give us whatever they think is fair market value and send us on our way. They just paid $4,500 an acre for this land here and right now in Ellis County lands $16,000 or $20,000 an acre. We can't replace the home that we've got if they offer us $4,000 an acre. We can't do that. But you have to understand that during the last two or three years we've been involved

in a kind of a birthing process and it's painful to see property taken from your neighbors. It's painful to see your ancestral farm for the last time. It's very painful to have these things happen. But the pain is really worth going through because of the possibilities of this project brings for our region, for our state and for the United States. The people of Ellis, Dallas and Tarant counties are paying for the land. Increases in their vehicle registration fees will raise the needed $40 million. It's kind of like the old impresario trick when I got a deal for you. When you get, he takes you out to lunch, invites you to dinner and wines and dine to you and then all of a sudden you realize you've been left with the check. Some people in this SSE project can't help but feel that way, especially those people who lost their homes.

Some of the support for the SSE was based on reports that said the project was environmentally safe, but people are learning this was a rosy assessment as well. People weren't too concerned about it at first, I don't think except some of the old timers who are naturally suspicious of you know, explosions underneath the ground. Well, to give you some highlights. Last fall, the Department of Energy revealed that groundwater use damaged to wetlands and low-level radioactive emissions will be greater than earlier predicted. If I act angry and it's probably because I am, so you sold us a cuddly little kitten and you're delivering us a man-eating tiger. The SSE is not a health and safety hazard, the way it is designed and the way it will be operated. While the environmental debate continues, so does the debate over where the money will come from. You know, everybody's going to have to pay for that all over the country, not just us but everybody. And then the new roads, it'll have to be built and all these things are afforded and everything

is going to be county taxes. Little taxes will go up if 3,000 workers live in this area, not all here, but in the county area and we'll get our share of them with building new school buildings that costs money. Tom Dodge expects SSE-related development to change the rural small town flavor of Ellis County. For one thing, it's a dry county. Some people figure that that won't last much longer because construction workers, you know, get thirsty and Dr. Pepper's not their, you know, drink of choice when they get off from a hard day's work. Dodge says things will change, but public officials say it will be for the better. And Ellis County, because of its proximity to an urban area, is going to grow. The question is, what kind of growth do we expect? Community growth, the kind of growth that can come from an SSE project, our growth that may not be as attractive for the future.

We'd really rather be with the SSE and have that as a magnet to attract quality growth for our community and our county. Margot Jones had excitement. She had everything in the community. You couldn't say no to Margot.

It got to the point of where you felt like, you know, she was a pod typer and you just had to follow her. Some theater patrons remember Margot Jones, the legend, from her work in the 40s and 50s. And now others will be able to learn about her legacy through an annual production at the Dallas Theater Center. Well, Dallas should be extraordinarily proud. Really, this was the birthplace of the American Regional Theater. This is the place that it started. Margot Jones was the pioneer that did it. Margot Jones brought to Dallas some of the best original first plays and playwrights and got the community interested in something other than warm-dovey shows that were brought here from Broadway. She launched the careers of playwrights like Tennessee Williams and Williams that are now classics and we felt that as the flagship theater in the hometown that it would be a wonderful thing to do a production each year that was in commemoration of Margot.

I'm going to make everything up as I go, it's going to be a whole new experience. The Dallas Theater Center's production of abundance inaugurates a series to honor the late Margot Jones as the founder of the American Regional Theater Movement. Margot Jones's debut in Dallas in the 40s, new plays like this one by Beth Henley, premiered on Broadway or not at all. At her theater in the round in Fair Park, Margot Jones broke the Broadway claim to all new work. Margot Jones was one of the pioneers of the American Regional Theater Movement. She was a founding mother, her book theater in the round was not only what's been called the Bible with the American Theater Movement, but it's declaration of artistic independence. It's independence from commercial theater and it's independence from the supposed cultural capital in New York.

That book not only opened up a new way of thinking about theatrical space, but it opened up the kind of world that you could put in different kinds of theatrical space. It's suddenly made it possible for people to say, we can do this, it's down in the basement of the church area, we can do this over in the school gym. Margot Jones built her dream in an unused building at Fair Park where every New Year's Eve, she and her fans changed the name of the theater to match the year. She'd come from East Texas and worked on Broadway, but she turned her back on New York to found this professional regional theater. The theater as Margot envisioned it was a theater for everybody, a national theater. She didn't think it should be centered in New York, to the exclusion of the Hander Landy, everyone should be available, everybody, and the more competition, the more theaters,

the better for everybody. And Margot Jones began by opening her doors to the disenfranchised in Dallas. Margot Jones was the first to desegregate a Dallas theater audience because she worked in theater and the round there was no balcony for the blacks to be in. It made no sense to her to separate the audience. By the early 50s, she was helping a group of Dallas black actors called the Roundup Theater. She directed their shows, she helped them, she lent them her theater to use for productions. Margot Jones' theater was a stopping off place for theater people from all over the country, particularly for young playwrights like Tennessee Williams and William Inge. Though there were university theaters at the time and a healthy amateur network, Margot Jones' theater was the only place outside Broadway where new playwrights could get their early work professionally produced. Margot Jones was the first to decentralize Broadway.

She, her theater in Dallas, was known as the Off-Broadway Theater. She, number one, was a great supporter of young aspiring playwrights. That was one of her main thrust of interest in the theater. She read voluminously, it was frightening to see the stacks of scripts in her stony apartment here in Dallas. Perhaps the most controversial script to be directed by Margot Jones was inherent the wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. The play and the subsequent film were their response to repression and McCarthyism in the 1950s. The plot was based on the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, where a biology teacher broke a Tennessee law by teaching Darwin's theory of evolution.

The play, because it attacks religious fundamentalism through a lightly rewritten version of the Scopes trial, was turned down by every commercial Broadway producer it was sent to. And until Margot Jones produced it in the Bible belt, it was considered unproducible, it was not safe. And she, not only premiered it, she made it a success. She launched those playwrights' careers. Margot Jones died at this high point in her career. Her death in July of 1955 was as macabre as the ending of a Tennessee Williams drama. She came home one night with a young playwright and drank and danced to Stravinsky's Firebird Suite.

She'd just taken up painting, and as she danced, she spattered oil paints on the sofa and carpet. The next morning, she had cleaners come in, they cleaned up the paint with carbon tetra chloride. The next day, she spent most of the day reading scripts, sitting on the carpet, smoking, drinking, and absorbed through her skin of fatal dose of carbon tetra chloride. After 10 days of excruciating suffering in the hospital, she died. To this great shock of many people, because she was a woman of tremendous vitality. It was a tragic loss for Dallas City. Her only legacy really was the American theater movement, her declaration of artistic liberty. Had Margot Jones lived, I think that the theater would have had a good dozen more playwrights of some real statue that we don't have today. I think that Margot was a typical.

You might say, America Master, because she was all the things that we'd mind, which is self-reliant, brave, bold, and imaginative, and she did something unique and wonderful with total passion and dedication, so for me, she was a major American Master.