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1.A.1.Folios
5 15 25 50
CYAN MAGENTA YELLOW BLACK
SMALL SPACES, BIG STYLE: Austinites find homes under 1,000 square feet have perks STATESMANHOMES French
Quarter
On target NCAA rematch stalwarts
Colt McCoy, receivers dominate UT’s Football championship foes Ohio State, want you
spring football scrimmage SPORTS Florida to play for basketball title SPORTS to come
visit
BEHIND THE ‘GRINDHOUSE’ Fast cars, naked women – the movies that inspired Rodriguez and Tarantino LIFE & ARTS TRAVEL
$1.60 Final statesman.com Sunday, April 1, 2007
After years of safety concerns, a fatality TEXAS YOUTH COMMISSION
Georgetown low water crossing where man
died last month was questioned from the start
By Bob Banta The 60-foot asphalt span
then, threatened to take a bull-
dozer and push that thing out of
Berry Creek,” Georgetown As-
sistant City Manager Jim Briggs
said last week. “If the Berry
his 28 years with the depart-
ment, six rescues have occurred
at the Berry Creek crossing,
starting in the 1990s. List, a re-
tired engineer, became the first
Mentally ill
youths left
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF stands only 6 to 7 feet above Creek area had been in the City fatality there, when he was
Berry Creek in northwest of Georgetown, that crossing washed away after climbing out
GEORGETOWN — The low Georgetown. Its potential dan- would not have been allowed. It of his car. His wife, Kathy, was
water crossing where 80-year- ger to motorists was recognized doesn’t fit the design parameters rescued by firefighters.
old Fred List was swept to his by officials even as it was built in we have for subdivisions and “We don’t want this tragedy to
death March 13 is just one ex- the mid-1980s, before it was an- land usage for most cities happen again,” Georgetown
ample of why Texas has led the nexed by the city. today.”
in lockups
City Council Member Pat
nation in flash flood deaths in “Jerry Mehevec, who was a Georgetown Fire Chief An-
the past 40 years. county commissioner back thony Lincoln estimates that in See CROSSING, A4
On statesman.com: Learn more about the dangers of road flooding with our interactive graphic at statesman.com/lowwater.
Activists say juveniles incapable of following
agency rules end up incarcerated for years
In pursuit of By Eric Dexheimer
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tarsha Jackson noticed her
By the middle of last year,
according to Youth Commis-
sion documents, he had accu-
mulated 664 behavioral
violations. Because advance-
KNOWLEDGE
son’s unusual behavior early
on. “It wasn’t just the terrible ment at the Youth Commission
twos,” she recalled. “He had is based largely on behavior,
big mood swings.” Marquieth Marquieth’s release date kept
was prescribed Ritalin even receding.
before he entered school. “As an adult, he would’ve
His behavior only worsened served six months in jail,” said
as he grew older. Marquieth William Connolly, a Houston
faced his first assault charge in attorney who’s been trying to
UT is already seen as a top research institution. Now, can it improve? fourth grade. In October 2003, get Marquieth, now 16, out of
with no other place willing to the Youth Commission. “He’s
accept him, he was sentenced been there for more than three
to nine months in the Texas years now.”
Youth Commission. The question of what to do
He was 12. with such troubled juveniles
Marquieth’s personality and highlights a growing dilemma
mental health problems at the Youth Commission,
seemed incompatible with the which increasingly is charged
strict Youth Commission pro- with caring for them. “The
gram, though. One psycholo- kids are hard to manage,” said
gist noted he went into a “re- Gail Lutz, an attorney for the
gressive primitive state” when University of Houston-based
he felt threatened; staff mem-
bers often restrained him. See JAILS, A6
Poorer nations to bear
brunt as world warms
Wealthier countries limit climate hazards in the
world’s most vulnerable re-
better able to cope, gions — most of them close to
the equator and overwhelm-
U.N. report finds ingly poor.
A new report Friday from
By Andrew C. Revkin the Intergovernmental Panel
THE NEW YORK TIMES on Climate Change, a U.N.
body that since 1990 has been
Ralph Barrera AMERICAN-STATESMAN The world’s richest coun- assessing global warming, will
BRACKENRIDGE FIELD LABORATORY: The 82-acre field lab along a major draw for faculty and students such as biology undergrad tries, which have contributed underline this growing cli-
the Colorado River is a three-mile drive from the UT campus and Christine Cao. The lab’s future, however, is uncertain. the most to the atmospheric mate divide, according to sci-
changes linked to global entists involved in writing it.
warming, are spending bil- The report will say that
lions of dollars to limit their wealthy nations far from the
own risks from its worst con- equator not only experience
sequences, such as drought fewer effects, but are better
and rising seas. able to withstand them.
But despite treaty commit- Two-thirds of the atmo-
ments to help poor countries spheric buildup of carbon di-
deal with warming, industrial oxide, a heat-trapping
nations are spending just tens
of millions of dollars on ways to See WARM, A12
Ralph Barrera 2006 AMERICAN-STATESMAN
MICROELECTRONICS RESEARCH INSIDE
CENTER: Under director Sanjay Ricardo B. Brazziell AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Deborah Rae Turner FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Banerjee’s watch, research at the MARINE SCIENCE INSTITUTE: Recent Taking control of her love life
new center develops tiny electron- GERMANIC STUDIES: The Texas German Dialect research at the marine lab includes Halle Berry has learned from her romantic
ic components and tries to replace Project aims to preserve the historical regional di- findings on fertility that could help
failures that she can’t put herself last.
electrical current with laser light. alect through a digital archive of native speakers. people struggling to have children.
In Parade
Story by Ralph K.M. Haurwitz y American-Statesman Staff
IN NATION / WORLD W E AT H E R
Loss of faith in Bush Mostly sunny.
W
hen the U.S. Navy university’s Harry Ransom Humani-
needed a hand-held ties Research Center is essential. The High: 84 Low: 60
sonar device that center’s vast archives hold their notes, In Austin,
Details, B8 and online at
its special forces, correspondence and even Singer’s former
statesman.com/weather
the SEALs, could Yiddish-character typewriter. Bush aide
use to check for UT is a research powerhouse, typi- says he’s
underwater explosives, it asked the cally among the top 20 or 25 universities disappoint- INDEX
University of Texas at Austin’s Applied in national rankings based on research ed in the
Research Laboratories to design a Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H1-6
expenditures, faculty honors, quality president. Deaths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B6-7
prototype. of doctoral programs and other factors. A14 Editorials, Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G2-3
When universities across the coun- Some of UT’s programs, such as com- Insight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G1-4
try competed to be the site of a On statesman.com: puting, engineering, accounting, Life & Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J1-14
supercomputer that will be more pow- s Explore more than 20 research pharmacy and Latin American studies, COMING THIS WEEK Metro & State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B1-8
erful than any other general-purpose programs in an interactive guide. are among the best in the nation, as are Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C1-12
computer currently in operation, the s Watch short documentaries on its collections of 20th-century litera- Austin on the job Television . . . . . . . . Show World, 1-28
National Science Foundation chose programs such as the Applied ture and Latin American artwork. Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J12-14
UT’s Texas Advanced Computing Cen- Research Labs, UT’s largest research Our new series spends a day World & Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A1-20
What’s more, UT’s research portfolio
ter for the $59 million project. unit, and the Texas German Dialect is growing at a brisk pace, with ex- at work with Austinites. ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Classifieds .............. Sections D, E and F
And when scholars want to immerse Project, which seeks to preserve a penditures, mostly from federal grants, Wednesday in Life & Arts ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
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themselves in the work of Nobel piece of our state’s heritage. up nearly a third in four years to $477
Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis s Go to: statesman.com/utresearch million in 2006. That spins off More soul to hear © 2007, Austin
American-Statesman
Singer or “Gone with the Wind” pro-
Urban Music Festival returns
ducer David O. Selznick, a trip to the See RESEARCH, A10
for a second year with a
second day of music.
Thursday in XL
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