News-Press from Fort Myers, Florida • Page 6

2A Fort Myers News-Press, Friday, August 4, 1978 Gay Bob comes out of the closet coins our or mCMStJ 1 0 1 I By DOLORES BARCLAY Associated Press Writer NEW YORK He stepped off a plane from Hong Kong a few days ago just 13 inches tall and already he's a star and a stir. Gay Bob. An acknowledged "homosexual" doll who totes around his very own closet. He's been hounded by the media, denounced by anti-gay groups and baffled major department stores. And through it all.

Bob has remained unruffled his blond crewcut neat as a pin, his blue earring shining bright, his California tan flashing sunshine. "It's a real giggle and kind of fun," said Bruce Voeller, executive director of the National Gay Task 1 3 1 u. miem 'A 1 1 distribution." Bob is the brainchild of Harvey Rosenberg, a 37-year-old inventor of whimsy who is fast at work on a vampire repellant kit. "I was afraid how people would receive Bob," he said. "Now, I have an internal ecstasy." In the past two months, he's sold 2,000 dolls.

This week. Gay Bob will come out in boutiques in San Francisco and New York, including Fiorrucci, Art Adventures and Chicken Little. But Rosenberg has not yet received commitments from department stores. "I showed it to buyers from a major department store chain and they liked it," he said. "Then they told an executive about it and before he even saw Bob he said, 'Kill Rosenberg, who heads Gizmo Development gizmos for a better world" spent $10,000 of his own money to create Bob.

"I'm not gay," he said, "but we had something to learn from the gay movement, just like we did from the black civil rights movement and the women's movement, and that is having the courage to stand up and say 'I have a right to be what I am. Rosenberg had spent most of his professional life working for large corporations developing and designing marketing concepts and then his business began to fail, his marriage crumbled and his mother fell seriously ill with cancer. "I decided then that I had to change my life, I had to do something that was important to me." That was two years ago. I fv, frorce. I think we should deal with it lightly and enjoy it.

"One concern though is that employers will have one in their office and think that it will suffice for having an openly gay person on their staff," Voeller quipped. Protect America's Children, an anti-homosexual lobby, on the other hand finds nothing amusing about Bob. "It's another evidence of the desperation the homosexual campaign has reached in its effort to put homosexual lifestyle, which is a deathstyle, across to the American people," said Edward Rowe, the organization's executive director. "I can only hope that the children who are given these Gay Bob dolls will not comprehend the meaning and intent of campaign that is behind their manufacture and 1 AP BOB IS BILLED AS THE WORLD'S FIRST HOMOSEXUAL DOLL 1 he sports an earring, custom-made flannel shirt and a $14.95 price tag Dateline: Weather Dateline-. The World The Nation watch Looking Ahead LOCAL Partly cloudy through Saturday with a chance of and evening thundershowers.

Highs will be around 90. Lows will be in the 70s. Winds will mostly be southeasterly at 10 mph or less. Rain probability is 50 percent today and 30 percent this evening. LOCAL SKIES Sunset today, 8:13 p.m.; sunrise Saturday, 6:54 a.m.

Moonset this evening, 8:35 p.m. First Quarter, August 11. Prominent Stars: Arcturus high in west, 9:54 p.m. Pollux rises, 5:14 a.m. Visible Planets: Venus sets, 10:28 p.m.

Mars follows Venus. Jupiter south of Pollux-brighter. TROPICAL WEATHER OUTLOOK A tropical wave located in the Caribbean is moving very slowly, according to the National Weather Service office in San Juan. The main zone of cloudiness and rain associated with the wave was over the Virgin Islands and Leeward Islands at 6 p.m. Thursday.

A flash flood was in effect for Puerto Rico, with the threat of a long period of heavy rainfall in prospect for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Strong and gusty winds reported in the heavier showers and thundershowers could cause some minor damage in the islands. BOATING (Cape Sable to Tarpon Springs) Winds will be variable mostly south or southeasterly at around 10 knots through Friday. Seas will be 3 feet or less with scattered showers and thunderstorms with locally rough seas. FLORIDA PENINSULA (except extreme northwest) Partly cloudy through Saturday with scattered afternoon thundershowers over the interior and Gulf coast.

Highs will be in the upper 80s to low 90s. Lows will be 70s except around 80 in the Keys. loi Friday I i VI vkWY 90 nimmm' JW lot arra 90 Rain vmj v.oia worm 90 7i Stationary Occluded oq uafa from Sh. NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NOAA US Oepl of Common. SHOWERS FOR NEW ENGLAND COAST AND NORTHEAST also for parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas Tides For Today Tuition tax credit clears panel WASHINGTON (AP) The Senate Finance Committee approved a trimmed-down plan Thursday designed to give millions of Americans a break on their income tax to help offset the expense of colleges and private schools.

The measure, which eventually would cost the government billions of dollars a year, would allow tax credits of up to $500 to defray the cost of a student's college education and up to $250 against the expense of a private elementary and secondary school. The revised bill, approved on a 12-1 vote, contains these provisions: Beginning immediately, taxpayers could take a tax credit equal to 50 percent of the cost of college or post-secondary vocational school tuition, up to $250. The credit would apply only to full-time students. Beginning on Oct. 1, 1980, the maximum break for college tuition would rise to $500, and the credit would be extended to cover half-time students.

Also beginning Oct. 1, 1980, parents of students at private elementary and secondary schools would qualify for a credit on 50 percent of the cost of tuition, up to $250. Cops put a stop to male stripper's strip KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) Four undercover women police officers and two uniformed policemen arrested a male stripper and six women patrons of a night club in suburban Sugar Creek. The stripper had removed his neatly tailored suit and was down to a G-string when some of the 200 to 350 women in the club began stuffing money into it.

Police rushed in on Wednesday and took the dancer and six women to jail. $8.3 billion cut from budget target WASHINGTON (AP) The House Budget Committee, convinced federal spending must be held down if inflation is to be halted, voted Thursday to cut $8.3 billion from the budget target set by Congress three months ago. But the committee showed no inclination to cut deeply into federal spending programs. In fact, nearly two-thirds of the reduction in spending reflects changes in estimating and the fact that the government has been unable to spend as fast as budget-makers had predicted. Only about $3 billion of the change takes account of congressional votes for lower spending.

The spending plan would accommodate a tax cut of about $14 billion in calendar 1979, but makes no recommendation on how taxes should be reduced. FBI agent told of King slaying payoff WASHINGTON (AP) An FBI agent was given a secondhand account by an informant several years after the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that a St. Louis stockbroker was "the individual who made the payoff of James Earl Ray." The stockbroker and a lawyer who also was implicated in the claimed conspiracy have died.

Their wives deny their husbands had any such involvement. The FBI agent's report on the matter was released by the FBI on Thursday. The agent, whose name has not been released, wrote a memo for his own files in March 1974, after a wide-ranging interview with an unnamed informant. Among the criminal matters they discussed was the informant's claim that he had been told the previous year by Russell G. Byers, a former St.

Louis car parts dealer, of a conspiracy by the lawyer and the stockbroker to murder King. Meanwhile, the Rev. Jesse Jackson has opened his own investigation into the killing of King because "the threat of death hangs over everyone present at the assassination." Prompted by a letter from Ray, the convicted assassin, Jackson asked permission Thursday to interview Ray at Tennessee's Bushy Mountain prison. Carfer defends his civil service plan FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) President Carter said Thursday night that his civil service proposals are designed to single out incompetent or lazy federal employees and them or fire them." But he also said, in remarks to an audience made up of many federal employees, that there is no way his proposals "can possibly hurt any competent or dedicated public servant." In a locally televised "roundtable discussion" at a suburban Fairfax, ya.

high school, the president faced an hour of questioning about his troubled proposals, which are presently before Congress. 1 The panel questioning the president was hand-picked, and includes both foes and friends of Carter's proposals to streamline hiring, firing and management in the federal government. Baker easily renominated in Senate bid NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker, bucking conservative Republicans on the Panama Canal treaties, was renominated in a landslide in Thursday's GOP primary election. Baker had 87 percent of the early vote against five opponents.

Voters also were picking a Democratic opponent for Baker and candidates for two U.S. House seats and governor. Despite Baker's national prominence he is expected to run for president voters paid most attention to the crowded Democratic and Republican governor races. Nine Democrats and four Republicans ran for their parties' nominations to succeed Gov. Ray Blanton, who did not run for a second four-year term.

Conferees agree on extension of Amtrak WASHINGTON (AP) House-Senate conferees reached agreement Thursday on legislation that would extend the life of Amtrak passenger trains marked for extinction by the Transportation Department. The legislation is intended to forestall plans announced in May by Transportation Secretary Brock Adams to trim one-third of the present Amtrak network. The compromise bill agreed produced on Thursday includes a plan, adopted by the House June 21, that would require that all routes Adams wants to eliminate remain in service until Oct. 1, 1979. Cfi7e quake kills miner SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) A strong earthquake shook central and northern Chile Thursday, killing a miner, injuring at least seven persons and causing considerable damage in and around the northern copper mining center of Copiapo, the government said.

The unidentified miner was killed in a cave-in at a copper mine about-24 miles from Copiapo, authorities said. The injured, some in serious condition, were taken to a Copiapo hospital. About four hours after the first quake hit, a weaker tremor was felt in the area. There were no reports of additional damage or injuries. First reports from the area's military governor said electricity and normal communications channels were cut by the quake, which toppled homes in Copiapo, a city of 35,000 about 400 miles north of here on the edge of the Atacama Desert.

By late Thursday, all services were reported back to normal. Sources said the impact was strongest in the mining town of Potrerillos, 75 miles northeast of Copiapo. A government spokesman said seven houses were destroyed and a hospital and 45 other homes were damaged in the community of about 8,000. The tremor was felt from Santiago and Valparaiso in central Chile, north to the city of Antofagasta, a distance of 850 miles. About 400,000 persons live in the provinces hardest hit.

The seismology center at the University of Chile in Santiago said the quake was centered in the Pacific Ocean on a westerly line from Copiapo, which is about 30 miles inland. Police kill two during India caste protests NEW DELHI, India (AP) Police gunfire during the eighth straight day of caste demonstrations in western India killed two persons Thursday and wounded six, news reports said. The situation in the Marathwara region was reported quiet but tense late Thursday, and a curfew was imposed in at least one city. Violence was touched off by the renaming of a state university after a leader of the "untouchables," lowest in the now-outlawed Hindu caste system. Wreck of historic warship found? BRIDLINGTON, England (AP) Searchers said Thursday they may have found the wreck of the Bon Homme Richard, sunk after a battle off Flamborough Head on England's northeast coast nearly 200 years ago.

The warship of John Paul Jones, father of the U.S. Navy, was a converted French merchantman. It sank Sept. 23, 1779, after a battle with the English frigate Serapis, whose captain, Sir Richard Pearson, surrendered his vessel. Divers have been at work off the coastline in the search, financed by Clive Cussler, an American historical novelist, at a cost of more than $76,000.

Thalidomide firm to make new payment LONDON (AP) The giant Distillers which marketed the thalidomide drug that resulted in some 400 British children being born deformed, announced Thursday it will pay out another $8.07 million to 69 children whose parents claim they were victims. That brings to $58.86 million the total paid out or committed by the British firm since the drug was marketed in Britain in the early 1960s. A. Distillers' spokesman said the company hoped this latest settlement to children not originally considered direct victims of thalidomide will be accepted "as a reasonable and equitable way of bringing this matter to a conclusion." Filipino officials lost after boat capsizes ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (AP) Several local and provincial officials were among 40 persons missing Thursday after their motor launch capsized in rough seas in the Southern Philippines. Basher Lingkoh, public information officr of Tawi-Tawi province, said bad weather and high waves hampered searchers.

The province is just northwest of Malaysia's Sabah state. In a message to a newspaper, Lingkoh said the boat went down late Wednesday 675 miles south of Manila. Senate cuts militaryfunds for Europe WASHINGTON (AP) The Senate approved $4 billion for military construction Thursday, with deep cuts in funding for combat-readiness projects proposed for Europe. The cutbacks underscored congressional complaints that NATO members are not paying enough of the cost of their own defense. The administration had requested $647 million for European projects.

About half the amount would go for combat-readiness projects while the other half would fund construction of barracks, schools and other support facilities for American troops. The committee cut the amount for combat-readiness projects by $318 million, but in a floor amendment, restored $25.4 million to bring the bill in line with a House-Senate conference report earlier this week on military construction authorization. Bomb blast kills four in guerrilla hideout MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina (AP) A bomb went off in a guerrilla hideout in this beach resort city, killing three men and a woman who were making explosives, police said Thursday. The incident early Wednesday raised to 16 the number of deaths from guerrilla bombs and shootouts reported by the military government in three weeks. Only 18 deaths had been reported in the previous seven months.

Guilty plea rejected in bombing case WASHINGTON (AP) A federal judge refused Thursday to accept a negotiated guilty plea from Michael V. Townley, a young American who is accused of planting the bomb that killed a former Chilean ambassador to the United States. Saying he had heard of the plea-bargaining arrangement from prosecution and defense lawyers only minutes before the court session, the judge told Townley he would take up the matter in court at some unspecified time in the future. Townley, 35, had agreed to plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to murder a foreign official. LOW HIGH Boca Grande 2:48 a.m.

1:35 p.m. 6:15 a.m. 8:07 p.m. Bokeelia 2:28 p.m. 8:37 a.m.

10:29 p.m. Bonita Beach 3:02 a.m. 1:49 p.m. 7:06 a.m. 8:58 p.m.

Cape Coral 4:02 p.m. 10:13 a.m. Edison Bridge 6:08 a.m. 4:55 p.m. 12:23 a.m.

10:55 a.m. Englewood 3:03 a.m. 1:50 p.m. Everglades 3:57 a.m. 3:32 p.m.

11:06 a.m. Fort Myers Beach 1:37 p.m. Marco 2:47 a.m. 2:08 p.m. 8:49 p.m.

Matlacha 4:43 a.m. 3:30 p.m. 11:33 p.m. Naples 1:52 a.m. 1:13 p.m.

7:16 a.m. 7:54 p.m. PuntaGorda PuntaRassa 2:59 a.m. 1:46 a.m. 8:43 p.m.

Sanibel 1:40 a.m. 12:27 a.m. 5:43 a.m. 7:35 p.m. Venice Inlet 1:58 a.m.

12:45 p.m. 6:33 a.m. 8:25 p.m. 'Denotes strong tide. Yesterday's Weather In Fort Myers Thursday, Aug.

3: High 89, low 73. Humidity (percent) at 7 a.m. was 94 and at 1 p.m. was 60. There was .08 of an inch of rainfall recorded for the 24-hour period ending at 10 p.m.

(measured unofficially at the News-Press); officially for the month to date 1.25 inches (average for August is 7172 inches); officially for the year to date 32.42 inches (yearly average is 53.95 inches). Gulf water temperature was 84. Temperatures elsewhere: Albany II Honolulu to 71 Son Ditto 71 7 ST Marl 41 Albuautraut il Houston 1 71 Francisco 50 Soattlt 13 St Amarlll 13 4 Indianapolis It 73 San Juan PR It Jt Washington If 73 Anchorago tl SS juntau 73 4 Athtvmt IS IS Kansas 7S 44 National tcmporaturt txtrtmes (contlg- uous United States): Atlanta It it La Vtgot 1IJ 14 High HJ at Las Vegos, Ntv. Baltlmor II 73 Llttlt Rock 3 75 Low 34 at Hovrt, Mont. Birmingham tl 71 Lot Angtlts II 43 Bismarck 71 17 Loulsvlllt 14 71 ClteS oltt ts SI Mtmphlt 1 1 71 Boston 14 44 Mllwouk 71 41 Miami II 73 Brawnsvlll 74 Minnoapolls 71 41 Apalachlcola IS 74 Napltt It 71 BiiHal 74 71 Nashvll tl 71 Daytona It 71 Orlando It 71 Burlngton 14 71 Ntw Orltant 17 77 Ft Loudtrdolt 17 7S Ptntacola fS 7t Chorlollt NC 17 47 Ntw York 14 71 Fl Mytrt tl 74 Punto Gorda tl 71 Chicago 74 41 Okla.

City IS 71 Galntsvlll It 71 Sanlptt tl 74 Cincinnati II 17 Omaha 71 S4 Jacktonvlll It 71 TallahatsM If 74 Cltvtlond II 41 Phllodtlphla to 7S Kv Wtst tl II Tampa II 71 Columbia SC 17 71 Photnli 104 74 Lthigh Acrts t4 75 Palm t3 71 Columbus II 71 Pittsburgh 10 4t Dallas to 77 Portland II 43 Dayton to 47 Pon.ond i4 si Canadian Cities Dtnvtr SSSI Provldtnc 1147 vu 74 43 Raltlgh tl 71 fairfc II 47 Richmond It 71 Calgary 7t 45 Rtglna 73 34 43 43 St. Lult 13 4t Edmonton II 3t Toronto 7t 44 lJO Sail Lak ts St Montrtol 7S 41 Voncouvtr 7t 57 'an Antonio tl 77 Ottawa 73 44 Winnipt 70 45.