WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28 2003
OPINION
4A • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 2003
TALKTOUS
Kristi Henderson
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Free forAll Call 864-0500
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For more comments, go to www.kansan.com
I was walking on campus and I just overheard this really old lady saying, "I can't believe I forgot that Wolverine was an X-Man." How weird is that?
Michael Moore for president!
If you're on spring break doing nothing and you call the Free for All, you must be a loser.
My mom chose life. I wish yours wouldn't have.
I know there's spooning and forking, but is there such a thing as sporking and kriving?
War protests are about as effective as masturbating with both hands tied behind your back.
So, I hooked up with one of the K-State men's basketball players over spring break, and let's just say that basketball isn't the only thing they suck at.
I'm kinda sad right now. I just came from the bathroom, and my pee looked green
Do we really want a president who mixes religion and war?
Yesterday I saw an NBC sticker on a military tank. Is this advertising?
I just saw a guy today with stain-resistant khaki shorts, and I just want to say that I want his pants. Very bad.
You know you live in McColum when they have the place on lockdown because of high terrorist alert, but leave the maintenance door wide open at 11 at night.
It's 2 in the morning and I'm typing a paper. I just misspelled "discourages," and my computer brought up "discourges" as a suggestion. I don't know if I'm really tired or my computer is really
Saddam Hussein backwards is Insane Badass. Okay, not exactly, but close enough.
Michael Moore is a smart, funny, compassionate filmmaker. Charlton Heston is an old, crusty racist.
If you can't respect Michael Moore for having the balls to exercise his freedom of speech by voicing his opinion, then you're an idiot.
--finds itself in. You can argue over whether Moore chose an appropriate forum for his debate, but this man — a rabble-rouser, a true American controversialist — given tens of millions of viewers at his disposal, has to ask himself, "If not you, then who?"
Michael Moore is a genius, someone everyone should look up to.
Hey Kansan, thanks for not wasting space on a campus event like the K.I.HK DJ battle, because then we wouldn't have gotten this awesome article on a girl who's a big KU fan. Nice work.
RERUNS OF OUR LIVES
I ALSO SEE...
Zach Stinson for The University Daily Kansas
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111 Staufer-Flint
Moore's acceptance speech at Oscars exercises right to controversial speech
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Even before Michael Moore accepted a hugely deserved Oscar for Bowling for Columbine Sunday night, the context of a world at war loomed large behind the scenes of the 75th Annual Academy Awards.
GUEST COMMENTARY
Prince sharpshooters could be seen popping out of windows high above Hollywood Boulevard. Anti-war protesters lined up for two blocks outside the Kodak Theatre, chanting "Occupation is not liberation!"
Stephen Shupe opinion@kansan.com
After the awards were under way, winners kept the protesting to a minimum, politely nudging support for peace and a swift resolution to the conflict.
But just as President Bush has said he "doesn't do nuance," Michael Moore doesn't do polite. Waving his fellow nominees to the podium, Moore uttered a quick thank you to the Academy and then proceeded to lambaste the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.
Before the music swelled to cut him off, Moore called President Bush the beneficiary of "fictitious election results" who is "sending us to war for fictitious reasons."
There's little interest to be glommed from how Bush was elected, but Moore was dead-on in his description of the fabricated conflict the United States now
As with his Oscar-winning film about the American gun culture, Moore again asked us to think outside the box. Inside the box lie fictitious endeavors such as the liberation of the Iraqi people and the disarmament of weapons of mass destruction. But outside the box lies the truth.
As reported in The American Prospect, a biweekly magazine of the alternative press, the Bush administration plans to redraw the map of the oil-rich Middle East. Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress, is
the likely U.S.-backed successor to Saddam Hussein. The congress and its neo-conservative bankers plan to dismantle Saudi Arabia, seize its oil and collapse the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
For more fiction, consider the spectacular juggling it's taken the administration to gain public support for the conflict. Time and again, the administration has cited Iraq's violation of U.N. Resolution 1441, choosing to ignore the dozens of violations of U.N. resolutions Israel has made since the early 1990s. Incentives for war have jumped from disarmament to liberation to regime change like stepping-stones.
Moore had given a longer version of this speech the night before in Santa Monica at the Independent Spirit Awards. He railed against the television news media, with its endless array of generals as consultants, saying, "I would like the U.S. military to withdraw from the American media."
This brings up another issue of what is and what isn't inside the box. Of course, a certain amount of military analysis is required for an understanding of events throughout the war, but that's virtually the only analysis we're given. The overwhelming majority of
news about the conflict has come from the very individuals who are perpetrating it; the White House and the Pentagon.
Few interviews with the Iraqi people are televised, even though there's a U.S. reporter in every nook and cranny in the Middle East. Few pictures of the Iraqi wounded are shown, even though protesters are parading blown-up pictures of mangled Iraqi children all over Bangladesh.
What kind of message are we sending to the rest of the world with our international policies and the skewed lens through which we film them? Michael Moore understands that history will judge what we've done. Namely, that we've invaded another country that's done nothing to us.
In his speech at the Independent Spirit Awards, Moore made a sobering connection between his film and the present conflict.
"The lesson for the children of Columbine this week is that violence is an accepted means by which to resolve a conflict," he said. "That's a sad, sick and immoral lesson."
Shupe is an Augusta graduate student in journalism.
PERSPECTIVE
Celebrity protests irrelevant to public; Idealistic student protests worthless
The public cares when a celebrity wears a certain brand of clothes, listens to a certain type of music or watches a certain kind of movie. Yet there is one glaringly obvious thing that celebrities flaunt that the majority of Americans don't care about.
COMMENTARY
According to a recent Gallup poll, eight of 10 American's couldn't care less about what celebrities have to say about the war in Iraq. In fact, those eight out of 10 said no celebrity would ever have an effect on their political stances.
Meagan Kelleher opinion@kansan.com
Celebrities are never shy of a camera or microphone, and more and more personalities have been putting their opinions out there. This was more than evident with this year's Academy Awards, when Michael Moore and Adrien Brody used their acceptance speeches to state their opinions. With that in mind, I wonder what ordinary people's motivations are when they publicly air their opinions, even when it is obvious that no one gives them a second glance.
Maybe it's time for those of the celebrity persuasion to shut their yaps
and focus on their next mockery of pop culture. If that can happen, maybe the rest of America can realize that their opinions hold no value toward anyone but themselves.
A prime example of a star whose celebrity clout has gone over their head is Jessica Lange. While at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain, Lange made her opinions on George W. Bush and the then possible war loud and clear. Lange said point-blank that she "hates Bush" and was "ashamed to come from the United States." This comment that was made overseas, that was printed in hundreds
of newspapers, online, in magazines only caught the attentions of a mere fraction of the entire American population.
So, what makes students think that there are people out there pining for a student's take on war? If Jessica Lange can't garner interest from anyone, what makes a group of college students protesting in front of Wescoe think holding "Impeach Bush" signs will make anyone re-think their opinions? It's an optimistic view, one that holds fantasies of Bush declaring that he had pulled all Coalition Forces out of Iraq.
There are the idealists — the people who maintain that, despite the war's arrival, their opinions of protest still hold clout. Protests such as those held at the County Club Plaza in Kansas City last week, where protesters were asked whether they thought their opinions were still important. Many said their opinions had gained importance.
Well, Bush did not take into account the anti-war sentiment of France, and he will not take into
account the anti-war sentiments of revelers at the Plaza.
As much as we long to be part of a country where our opinions truly matter, those with issues on their minds could focus on educating those who wander the same campus and the same city. Try to stay as realistic as possible when you share your thoughts, because being stuck in the middle of America means that our tiny voices as students get lost in the shuffle.
I am forced to take the position of devil's advocate here in suggesting that maybe, just maybe, all the protests focused toward government officials are actually not effective at all. The motivations of protestors need to be refocused on realistic issues, because this war is in full swing, whether you like it or not.
Doing this won't put you on the same level as celebrities, but maybe you will get your point across to people who want to listen.
Kelleher is an Omaha, Neb., sophomore in journalism.