4
Wednesday, June 3, 1992
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FROM THE EDITORS
Kansan adopts new look to improve readability
Change is inevitable. Without the ability to change and adapt, stagnation occurs.
We decided to put the Kansan through a redesign process.
This was the situation the Kansan was in at the end of the spring 1992 semester. We discovered many areas of the Kansan where stagnation had established a solid foothold, and others where it was just beginning. Clearly change was needed.
We examined many different areas: design, layout, type styles, the overall look, the purpose of the Kansan, and the way it presented the news. We looked at other publications to discover new trends in newspaper design. We also examined the internal working structure of the Kansan to find areas for improvement.
In the end, we came to several conclusions. Newspapers across the country are becoming more and more visually oriented. Stories are being written concisely. We decided that the Kansan, too, must follow these trends.
Granted, initiation may be the highest form of flattery, but it does not provide individuality. We wanted to create our own publication, not a congenialization of other newspapers. We feel that the new look of the Krasnan accomplishes that task.
Our goals were to make the *Kansan* easier to read and understand, to make the news easier to find, and to make it more pleasing to look at.
We hope we have accomplished these goals, but ultimately that is for you, the readers, to decide.
In many ways, this summer's *Kansan* is an experiment. However, we don't want to limit our changes to just the design and visual areas. We want to try and make improvements in our coverage of campus and minority issues. We would also like to cover local news and provide an insight into the happenings of Lawrence.
Unfortunately, the staff during the summer is very small, and we can only do so much.
At the end of the spring semester, a friend told me that no one really expected anything from the Kansan in the summer, so I shouldn't worry about trying to impress anyone. I find this very difficult to accept. There are still students at KU in the summer who deserve a functional newspaper.
As we go through the process of making changes and trying new ideas,
we can only ask that you bear with us.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Racism erodes the heart
This is no time for divisive dogma, ignorance and racism. Mr. Etrick. You stated in your article that the Rodney King verdict filled you with hatred, disgust and rage. Do you believe that you stand alone in your anger and disillusionment over the verdict? Or that only people of a darker skin color feel powerless and frustrated by the forces of racism that plague our great nation?
Ifyoubelievevo,Mr.Ettrick,youarewhollymistaken.
Certainly not, Remember, Mr. Ettrick, as Americans, all of us are in this together. We can choose to burn and die together. It's that simple.
An overwhelming majority of whites, not just Blacks, were taken aback by the Rodney King verdict, and they believe, too, that action must be taken to correct the injustice. But murder and lynching? Is that going to help us of toward a more integrated, cooperative and just society?
No doubt, Mr. Ettrick, that after the violence in Los Angeles the dream of a racial harmony seems far off and unobtainable. But then again, the Black vote seemed equally distant in 1954. However, if you will recall, Mr. Ettrick, the destruction of the Jim Crow laws was spearheaded by Black and white Freedom Riders and marchers.
Jeff Gardner
Graduate student
Black and white Americans put their safety, and sometimes their lives on the line to build an American in which all people might be judged by their character, not the color of their skin. They stood together, as we must now stand together, in opposition to the fact that hatred and racism is not a disease of the skin, but of the heart and soul.
Lollipops and diplomas?-NOT!
Statements from the Human Relations Committee get goofier each week. The latest is a renewed attempt to affirm the importance of free speech while "recognizing that 'hate' speech is intolerable at KU."
The committee needs to recognize that "acceptable free speech" is a hopeless contradiction of terms and do the campus a favor by disbanding. Human Relations Committee head Maggie Childs said, "The last one (statement) focused solely on speech and what's kind of 'good' speech and 'bad' speech. That was kind of a delicate question — it was too much of a vague judgment." Apart from the befuddled syntax (this committee desperately needs a logician on board), there is a glimmer of insight here. There is no way to proceed on this matter without making vague judgments, which reduces the issue to someone's idea of what is right and wrong.
This whole "politically correct" idea is just one more expression of the bankruptcy of liberal thought on our campuses, which, along with "deconstructionism" and "multiculturalism," is turning our colleges into moral and intellectual kindergartens. Any university that, to please the feminist with contingent, would substitute "I Am lisis" for the Declaration of Independence is not just serious about education.
Why doesn't KUhand out lollipops with its diplomas each year?
After walking 20 miles in 85 degree weather, Acacia Berry, Chapel Hill, N.C. takes a break along the 1700 block of Massachusetts St. She is a participant in the Walk Across America For Mother Earth, which started in New York in January and passed through Lawrence Saturday. She plans to finish the walk October 12.
If you have a yen for a perfect double, then Japan has the answer, for a price
It's along hot summer in Lawrence.
You've got classes, a job and social responsibilities. Your parents, already upset that you didn't come home for the summer, think you should come home for a visit. Like you havetime to drive cross country, cross state, across town. Where did you say you were from again?
No matter, Japan Efficiency Headquarters has the solution. That's right, after gaining the advantage in economics, trade and technology, Japan now has the latest addition to the nuclear family.
Rent-a-relative.
You don't have time to spend the weekend at Mom's? No problem. For a mere 150,000 yen, or $1,150, you can rent a stand-in for three hours.
It just goes to prove that some people will do anything for money. For just a little more than a grand, they let your grandma pinch their cheeks and tell
them they need to eat more. They get to now your dad's mammoth back yard and clean your old room. The stand-in does the visiting with distant relatives whom they know just as well as you do. You've heard your mom's jokes before? The stand-in hasn't.
Yes boys and girls. Japan has the jump on us once again. Career men and women have become so goal-oriented in the industrial islands that this latest craze is a booming business. In the company's two year existence, 80
families have been visited by stand-
ings. The waiting list is just as long
In post-World War II Japan, the nation has dedicated itself to increased productivity and efficiency. The once-ruled elderly of Japan must now settle for entertainers. Thus, Japan Efficiency Headquarters is merely supplying a demand. Who says you can't buy love?
The uses that American society has for similar services seems endless.
Are you too out of shape to go to your class reunion, and don't have time to lose the weight? No problem. Send an actor who looks better than you ever did. Have him tell people you joined a gym. What the heck, send a beautiful actress with him to play the wife.
David Mitchell Staff columnist
Summertime often brings the worst family nightmare — family reunions. No problem. If your family is not very close, and none of you want to go anyway, imagine 100 strangers standing around making meaningless chit chat. Tell them to send you the video.
Your friends want you to go to the Royals game and you just can't bear to watch. No problem. Of course, it will cost an extra $1,150 to get your stand-in through the evening (tickets, parking and concessions.) But you won't have to see Tom Gordon give up 10 runs in two innings. Stay home, watch the news and live to laugh about it.
Your girlfriend wants you to have dinner with her family. Yipes, call the stand-in.
Your parents are paying your tuition. They don't want to mail the check, and you don't want to dive all the way home just for money? Hey, come on, this is your family we're talking about.
David Mitchell is a DeSoto senior majoring in journalism.
Sound bites plague presidential elections
While the sun is heating up the pavement outside this summer, the presidential candidates will be inside adding to the fervency. There is only five months until the general election, and potential voters can look forward to a barrage of sound bites, video blips and slanted campaign rhetoric.
Sound bits, those pithy nine-second messages to influence the public — I wonder how much time speech writers spend mulling over the perfect word or phrase.
It is rare to find expanded versions of the candidates' speeches. Fully answered questions are not common. We have been left to wade through the pool of election-year witticisms.
Coaches of the sound bite stress the need for grammatically unusual statements, something to make the receiver say, "Huh?"
They have to be short, too. Like any other bite, they cannot be too big, or the candidate chokes . Dream on.
Overtime, men have learned that it is not what you do, it is what you say and how you appear. From Caesar's "i came; I saw; I conquered," to Ronald Reagan's (or should I say Clint Eastwood's) "make my day."
As Ben Bagdikian wrote in a recent Mother Jones' article, "left on his own with reporters, Reagan would have revealed himself to be one of the most ignorant men ever to be elected president, beating out Calvin Coolidge, whose picture Reagan proudly remounted in the White House."
But we cannot blame the candidates alone. The media has a few knots in this noose too.
Reagan may have been good at the sound bite too, but he shone when it came to the video blip.
It's all there: the unusual grammar, the raised voice and the brief pause to confuse the listener.
News is not a natural phenomenon. Information has been diced, spliced and ground up to be easily digestible. It is a by-product of reality, and the mainstream press has been muddled by political and economic manipulations.
JUSTIN KNUPP
Editor
Top editors of leading news organizations are hand-picked. They're sent to business schools where they are taught to tote the corporate line.
All too often people have had their quotes taken out of context or not noticed at all. The competition for dollars is fiercer than ever before, and the control of most of the world's broadcast stations, magazines and newspapers will soon be in the hands of only a few corporations. Media giants do not survive on scraps.
KANSANSTAFF
The immediate scare in this money grab is the bulging pocket of Ross Perot. Will he take the grassroots path that many are hoping for? Probably not. Powerful television ads can help decide a close election.
KIM CLAXTON Business manager
Yes, we should be. This might be the year of the photo finish.
During histerm is president, Reagan brought new meaning to the term "photo-op." When it became clear to his media advisers that he could not answer all the media's questions accurately, the advisers called the various
JENNIFER BACH Managing editor
news bureaus and ordered them to send only photographers to the White House when Reagan was to meet with foreign dignitaries and other high-rankers. When reporters tried to get in, they were quickly called back by their managers.
Right now George Bush may be the king of the sound bite "Read my lips ... no new taxes," said the candidate.
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
BRIAN WOLF Director of Client Services
Campus ... Gayle Osterberg
Assst. Campus ... Doug Fliackbach
Contributing ... David Mitchell
Photo ... Derek Nolan
Graphics ... Aimee Brainard
Editors
Potential voters might choke on it too, because their minds are clogged with the hundreds of ads they see and hear every day.
JEANNEHINES Sales and marketing adviser
Special Promotions ... Mellissa Tettl
Production mgr ... Brad Breon
Retail Support mgrs ... Ashley Largford
Hillary Witcox
Production mgrs ... Mary Ellen
Regional support mgr ... Jane Henderson
Classified mgrd ... Kate Burgess
Business Staff
**Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Kansas must include class and hometown, or faculty or staff position.**
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The bison reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the bison newsroom. 111 Staffer Fint Hall.
Dan Janousek is a senior majoring in journalism.
Loco Locals
"PSYCHOLOGY NOW" IS
A UNIVERSITY EMBARRASS-
APP... EMBARRASSOR TO
YOU - THE STUDENT - HELLO?
CAUSE?
by Tom Michaud
BUMMER!...LISTEN,
I GIVE THE MESSAGE
TO DR. REED, AFTER
HE GETS BACK FROM
SUMMER VACATION.