MONDAY APRIL 21, 2003
4A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
MONDAY,APRIL 21,2003
TALKTOUS
Kristi Henderson editor
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Jenna Goepert and Justin Henning managing editors
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Leah Shaffer
readers' representative
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Amanda Sears and Lindsay Hanson opinion editors 864-4924 or opinion@kansan.com
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Matt Fisher
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EDITORIAL BOARD
Day on the Hill deserves support
Now that it's gone, it's missed. Having the opportunity to listen to good live music has been a basic part of being a KU student. For 13 years, Student Union Activities has delivered a free outdoor concert during the spring semester.
This year, SUA made the decision to put Day on the Hill funds toward other entertainment outlets.
"We were spending too much money and not entertaining enough people," said Isaac Dill, live music coordinator for SUA.
Annoyed students have turned to Free for All to voice their frustrations with SUA's choice. But the problem is not with SUA's lack of funds or lack of planning.
What this event needs is active community support.
SUA has an average budget of $20,000-$30,000 each year for Day on the Hill. This money must pay for a headliner band, opening acts, local bands, security, publicity and facility rental. A band's fee includes booking, a talent fee, transportation and lodging.
Last year about 3,000 people attended this expensive concert for free.
Day on the Hill hosted Pearl Jam in 1992 and other big name bands such as They Might Be Giants. The more popular a band, the harder it is to book, and the bigger the name, the higher the cost. Dave Matthews Band, for example, can cost as much as $150,000.
SUA devotes many hours to setting up a flawless event. The SUA staff has worked each year to bring in bands that would please a variety of tastes, and the brainstorming has already begun for a future concert. Dill said he would like to open Day on the Hill meetings to the community to give people a chance to be involved in something they care about.
SUA's major new idea is to make Day on the Hill a benefit concert. SUA has already teamed up with KJHK and envisions the collaboration of other campus organizations.
The community should be willing to pay a few dollars for next year's show. The closest thing to a free concert is a cheap one, and next year it could be for a cause, not just for entertainment.
Day on the Hill is a program that the entire KU community can enjoy. With the support and ideas of the community, SUA will revive the long-standing concert and give Lawrence what it wants: good live music.FOR ALL YOUR NEEDS
Meghan Brune for the editorial board
EXQUISITE RELIFE
Lance Menoley for The University Daily Kansan
PERSPECTIVE
People not defined by homeland individuality counts for everything
Editor's note: Stauffer writes a biweekly column about her experiences studying abroad. She is participating in the humanities and western civilization program in Florence, Italy and Paris.
Used to view the international students on campus with a combination of curiosity and a feeling of separation, an inability to penetrate into their world. Now that I live at the Cite Universitaire, I find that I now know more than I ever thought possible how it feels to be in their places.
Whenever I meet new people, which is not often and usually in the cafeteria over salisbury something, they usually greet me with a knowing smile and say something such as, "Oh, you are American. Are you from Texas? I hope not."
COMMENTARY
This does not lead to a lasting friend- ship.
As ashamed as I am, I can count on one hand the number of times I have struck up conversations with students from other countries at the University of Kansas who did not have something to do with politics or who I told should try
When people make assumptions about those from specific countries and treat them as stereotypes, and not individuals, it is almost impossible to find out who they are.
Louise Stauffer opinion@kansan.com
Some of my feelings of isolation melted away when I met a flutist named Marion from Macedonia. He plopped down his heaping tray next to mine and some others from the University in the cafeteria, didn't say hello and ate so fast my friends and I just watched in amazement. After his shout of disappointment that he didn't get a brain freeze in spite of inhaling three cups of ice cream, he asked our names and didn't flinch when we told him we were Americans. He laughed and started talking about his friends.
a restaurant in Lawrence that might have food like their homelands. Just for the record, my Greek friend hates The Mad Greek, so don't try it.
"We are just so alive," he said with a wide grin. We were so excited that someone was actually talking to us without caring where we were from that we became friends immediately.
Marion introduced us to his Polish
friend Machek (pronounce it like Magic, he told us) taught us some Slavic words, took us out to a basement pub to drink Sangria and rescued me from the metro police after convincing me it was OK to jump the gate.
He showed us perfect examples of that wonderful European confidence and generosity, saying "when I go to Juilliard" and playing his flute so loud you could hear it across campus and lending money to friends without a second thought.
He was honest, telling me after I highlighted my hair that it was just "a little better."
We have never talked about Bush or the war or capitalism. We discuss food, drink, people and any other topic of conversation one would overhear at a Lawrence coffee shop on a lazy afternoon.
When I get back, I am going to take a new approach when meeting someone studying at the University from abroad. Maybe we can bond about the wonderful architecture of Wescoe Hall or where to get the cheapest groceries. All I know is that to make friends, no matter where they're from, the trick is to find out what makes them who they are and not what their countries do.
Stauffer is a Holland, Mich., junior in journalism and English.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Cartoon dehumanizes women
For all those men who view women as a crop of cleavage, for all those men who like their women better as meat than as humans, why don't you be men about it and write a guest commentary for us all to read? At least then we can make a decision about whether these people are enlightened or just pathetic. But please quit fooling yourselves that of all the types of discrimination out there, sexism is the only one that's a harmless joke.
If someone wrote an editorial seriously supporting the toxic beliefs implied by your cartoon, they'd be laughed off campus. The reason so many men get away with such sexism and the reason so many women get raped is because we've all found it easier to laugh it off as a joke than put their ideas into the light to see them for what they are.
It might be a joke to the author of the April 18 (editorial) cartoon, but it's not a joke to the 84,000 women who were raped last year by men who felt just that way. It isn't a joke to the majority of women who don't fit impossible body image standards and who are made to feel worthless because of it.
The editorial section of the Kansan should be open to all opinions and viewpoints, even misogynist ones. It shouldn't be a place where dehumanizing beliefs are excused as funny. That's a disservice to all the jerks out there who take sexism seriously, and the rest of us who wished they'd be exposed.
No value in objectification
Luke Middleton, Lawrence graduate student in English
I recently received my Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. Although I now live in Vermont, I still feel a strong connection to KU and Lawrence, and still keep in touch with what is happening around town and on campus. I am often pleased to hear about positive and progressive changes. Unfortunately, I occasionally hear about incidents of blatant prejudice, discrimination, and oppression.
As a graduate of the University, I was embarrassed to see the very offensive (editorial) cartoon that appeared in April 18's The University Daily Kansan. What were the editors thinking? The cartoon is crudely sexist. The women in the strip stand mute while the men in the cartoon objectify the women's bodies, referring to them as "crop" and "meat." Is there anything thoughtful here at all? Is it even funny? What possible value does this serve?
I'm not suggesting censorship here but responsible editing. Does the Kansan really want to suggest to women that their worth comes from conforming to unrealistic beauty standards, and suggest to men that they should think of women as crops or meat? Does the Kansan want to suggest that these attitudes, which are harmful to both women and men, are in any way funny? I can imagine dozens of ways of approaching this topic that are both funny and non-exist. For instance, why not a comic strip making fun of men who treat women like objects?
Kansan reinforcing sexism
Michael T. Schmitt, Postdoctoral Fellow,
Dartmouth College
I am writing to express outrage at the editorial cartoon appearing in April 18's The University Daily Kansan. Just what is the editorial staff trying to say with this cartoon? Does the editorial board truly believe that women should have huge breasts and tiny waists? Does the editorial board view women primarily as sex objects? Does the editorial board think that the only thing men notice about women are their breasts?
This cartoon and the stereotypes it reinforces would be offensive if it appeared anywhere in the Kansan, but the fact that it appears on the opinion page is unbelievable.
It is disheartening that the Kansan runs an anti-feminist column every few weeks. It is disheartening that I cannot read the Kansan without having to see ads that use women's bodies to sell goods and services. But I am disgusted to find on the opinion page exaggerated breasts on women who don't even get to speak, along with words like "cleavage crop" and "swater meat" coming out of men's mouths.
As a community of learning, we should be doing everything in our power to help people overcome their sexism. We should not be reinforcing a sexist mindset by allowing crude drawings which reduce women to body parts to take up one-third of the opinion page.
Chantel C. Guidry, Watson Library
Free for All
Call 864-0500
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com
you know you're in western Kansas when you can use your brights on the interstate.
You know who I just remembered? The 7-Up guy, you know, the red dot with the sunglasses. That guy was cool.
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you know you're in western Kansas when you can use your brights on the interstate.
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I just saw an Action News reporter standing around doing absolutely nothing.
is it just me, or is the Orbit gum girl hot?
Lurinated on Mount Sunflower.
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Who the hell thought the "Campus Cleavage Crop" cartoon was appropriate?
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Why is it that I know I'm crossing a one-way street, but I still look both ways?
I sure am depressed about the hot bartender at Fatso's that's married. Here's to beer and divorces.
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Instead of blaming KUJH for your reception problems, why don't you blame the cable company?
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Yeah, I'd just like to say I've got you all beat. I had to get a second computer to hold all of my porn stash, so suck it.
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I'm looking for a business partner. The idea. Bobblehole Muhammad Ail.
It's been raining for two days straight and I have three papers due on Monday, but everything's going to be OK because my roommate just told me that SUA is showing Office Space this week.
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I guess with a nose that big it's kinda hard to stay out of people's business.
My friend and I are calling for the liberation of breasts everywhere. The 34DDs are sick of being oppressed because we are forced to wear grandma bras. This is boobism and we don't have to take it.
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I think somebody fell asleep at Comedy Central because they've been playing the same Jon Stewart for the last four days and I'm sick of it.
Pedestrians, walk faster or I will run you over.
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