4
Mondav. September 12. 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
KJHK problems complex but obligations are clear
Sorting out the JKHI issue isn't easy. That's because it comprises several separate issues:
- Does KJHK have an obligation to play "alternative" music, or music that is not played on conventional radio stations?
- In its effort to promote an alternative image, was the staff behaving unprofessionally, and was a change needed?
■ in the name of professionalism, did faculty members force
the and formal changes on the station, which is supposed to be
made by the staff.
The answer to the first point is no. KJHK has no obligation to play alternative music, or any other kind of music. Its first obligation is to its audience. The KU student group's research says, aren't interested in an alternative-only format.
But KJHK had a national reputation for promoting progressive music, and as the protests and letters have shown, the station had carved out a small but fiercely loyal market-share for itself with the old format. When scanning the Lawrence radio waves and counting the stations that already play Top-40 drivel, a non-standard station, even one that plays "thrash" one night a week, doesn't seem bad. The decision to move substantially closer to the crowded middle-of-the-road does.
The idea of promoting a professional atmosphere, however, is excellent. No one, especially people closely tied to the station, could deny that the station needed to grow up because in addition to serving student listeners, the University-owned station must serve students who want broadcasting careers. KJHK wasn't doing that. The new format may or may not boost ratings, but the new emphasis on running a professional station can only help.
But both faculty and students involved in the changes agree that the changes were not made underhandedly, but in a manner consistent with the station's rules. Those rules allow for the faculty members on the board to initiate changes, which they did, but nothing could be, or was, passed without student members' consent.
Finally comes the problem of faculty interference. If this were the case, it would be a cause for protest across campus. This is not true. In fact, I had the privilege of
The complaints about faculty meddling, then, appear to be unfounded. Lamentations about the loss of an alternative to mainstream music are understandable, but the pain of that loss is offset by the gain of what we hope will be a more professional, better-sounding and better-listened to station that can be even more of an asset to the University.
Michael Merschel for the editorial board
For the first time, a woman holds the post of battalion commander of the University of Kansas Army ROTC program.
Also for the first time, a woman holds the post of battalion executive officer, second in command.
An A-OK move by ROTC
Congratulations to Cadet/Lt. Col. Janette Favreau, Leaven-
ham senior, and Teresa Ann Arnolden, lenoxen,lenoxen senior,
for succeeding in a mateddominated program.
Cadets were ranked for grades, performance in ROTC and performance in an intensive advanced training camp. Two cadets
Women in top-level positions in KU's military programs is not a hukue. Another woman holds a high-ranking position in Army ROTC, and both KU's Navy and Air Force ROTC have women in commanding officer and executive officer posts.
It is a healthy and reassuring sign that women are succeeding in leadership positions, especially at a university when it comes to women's leadership.
Becoming the Army ROTC battalion commander or executive officer is an accomplishment in itself, for men and women. The fact that two women secured these positions is newsworthy because it's never happened before. Perhaps one day there won't be a "man's Army" or a "woman's place," and we won't see them again. Men are equal to men or even sometimes a little better.
Christine Martin for the editorial board
the editors in this column are the opinion of the editorial board.
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BOB SULLIN HERE AMERICA! I'M HERE TO FIND HOW GLASNOST IS CHANGING DULL,COLORLESS,RUSSIAN LIFE. MR. KARNOVICH WHY ARE PEOPLE STILL STANDING IN LINE FOR TOILET PAPER?
Tom Michaud/KANBAN
Clay Belcher Assistant professor, architectural engineering
Imagine another scenario, also suggested by Buchanan. A new film about Anne Frank is released. A group protest, pickets and boycots to stop its distribution. With whom would the filmmakers have to deal? One allegiance and support the protesters? Or would you defend the First Amendment rights of the Hollywood mogul who has chosen to defame Jews with quick-back sensationalism portraying Anne Frank as a lusting teenager fantasizing at Auschwitz about seducing an SS guard? Another allegiance to garbage. Would it be our responsibility to persuade him not to? I submit that we have the same responsibility to decry a movie that defames Christians by portraying our Savior as a confused, lustful wimp and insults believers by insulting our insurrection as a fabrication of the Apocalypse.
Protest isn't censorship
The controversy over Martin Scorsese's "the Last Temptation of Christ" has many facets. However, censorship, as your Sept. 1 editorial claimed, was not one of them. To censor implies that the film is disrespectful to God or movie, etc.) This is not what Christians who oppose the film are advocating. We are attempting to use our right of free speech to persuade others as to the legitimacy of our claims. We are using our economic power to convince those actors that it is not in their best interest to continue.
It is ironic (though hardly surprising) in this age of "sensitivity" that the Hollywood establishment is permitted, encouraged even, to ride rough-shod over everything held important to Christians. If they tried that with any other kind of Christianism, they would be forced to back down in the face of widespread public outrage and indignation. And right so. As Patrick Buchanan put it, in our society, ridiculing blacks and anti-Semitism are political suicides. However, Christian-bashing is our most popular spectator sport. Where is that manifested sensitivity when it comes to Christians?
I find it interesting that Mr. Balandra's comments concerning the movie "The Last Tempelation of Christ" should immediately follow Chris Martin's comments regarding her death. What I see is that Mr. Balandra's remarks are "offensive" to certain groups of people. Although I agree those address public gatherings well-advised to consider their remarks carefully, I find it ironic that we don't also expect those in the film to consider the effect of their productions.
Situations could occur in which a quest to portray true events offends certain groups of people. For example, I would find it difficult to recount accurately the events of the Holocaust
Double standards
without risking offense to members of the Nazi party. However, in the case of this movie, both the director and Universal Studios readily admit that they are not attempting to convey truth, but to produce an artistic comment about a famous personage. One would have expected that the director and their fellow man would have kept such an adamantly fictional account from being produced.
Apparently, we should have censors to ensure that residents of Johnson County at all are not removed remarks made in a local gathering or the University of Texas at Austin attempts to protect Christians from nationwide offense are prevented from doing so in order to protect the "constitutional rights" of those individuals. A producer may have the constitutional right to produce such a film, but in light of personal decency, they should keep showing and framing offensive and insulting believers in Christ?
Ned Keller Lawrence graduate student
ed Keller
Rationing parking
The University of Kansas had to ration computer resources. Its only choice was how to do KU could have chosen to ration by price - raise usage fees to reduce demand, and perhaps use cheaper equipment. Doing so would have caused many hardships. or KU could have chosen to ration by caste system, perhaps forbidding freshman and sophomore use of the mainframe except in computer science classes. Dong so would have required computer services in a way that any ordinary citizen of a Soviet-bioch country would find only too familiar: It rationed them by frustration. Dong so caused many hardships, including to my project. Notice that whatever KU did would have had bad effects, though价-rationing meant a huge hope of easing the problem in the long run.
This letter concerns the campus park crunch — but first some background. Eight years ago, I hoped to write interactive computer services that would help customers Honeywell mainframe. Unfortunately, the potential demand for computer services exceeded what the services could supply. The result was such lengthy delays between user and vendor; the gap was so large that interactive instruction was impossible.
KU also rangers parking by frustration, with a mitigating feature that again would be all-too familiar to Soviet city citizens. Special parking privileges for those who "need" them. Your vehicle may be given an extra parking hardships. Another way to ration would be by cause — perhaps deny on campus parking in any
freshmen and sophomores who aren't also classified staff. A third possibility, which might offer hope for long-term easing of the parking problem, would be to ration by price.
KU would need to set prices high enough to accomplish several things simultaneously: severely restrict current demand, forcing such companies to invest in carpooling; accumulate cash to turn existing lots into parking garages; and encourage capitalism to provide other alternatives such as jiries services. Doing so would cause many businesses, it would wrong KU's lower-paid employees.
But some form of rationing is inevitable. KU's only choice is how best to do it. Those who are understandably upset by the current system of rationing by frustration and privilege should use alternative rationing schemes (and how to mitigate the wrongs they inevitably inflict.)
Arthur Thomas
Arthur Thomas
Arthur Young Distinguished
Professor of Business, Emeritus
Swastika use wrong
The recent decision by KJHK officials to alter the format of radio programming bears no relationship whatsoever to the incredible atrocities perpetuated by Adolf Hitler and other Nazis. I am appalled by the thoughtless, careless use of the swastika to protest KJHK policies.
That swastika, originally a symbol of positive power, has been tainted forever through its use in the 1940s and 1950s to use it on T-shirts to protest the policies of a radio station, they made a choice that was unententionally exploitative of the Holocaust. He was also an avid collector of cheapens and parodies the experiences of those who survived World War II, most particularly the Holocaust. He is buried in Nazi Germany, Eastern Europe and beyond.
I decry the use of this symbol's anti-Semitism and terrorism. I am brutally offended by this contemptible, albeit unintentional, parody of an imaginatively horrible part of our history.
In October, an author and survivor of Auschwitz, Eile Wiesel, will come to campus. I want to ask that the KJHR policies find ways to do so without relying on easy and false analogies; I want to ask that those T-shirts not be worn anywhere, but most particularly that they not be worn in groups.
And I want to share with you the fact that not everyone who has survived atrocities will acknowledge that survival publicly, as Elie Wiesel has done.
More important than not offending an honored speaker, however, is upholding the principle of respect. If you are the planned extermination of an entire people with the decision of a radio station to alter programming demonstrates not only youth and vulnerability but also that terrifies me. We cannot afford to forget the reality of the Holocaust. We cannot afford to take it lightly or to encourage cheap and rude behavior.
There are better ways to protest a change in radio station policies.
Kiesa Kay Lawrence graduate student
BLOOM COUNTY
I AS MOVIBLE AS RHONDEE
POLLEN, THE SEASON'S FIRST
REAL CONTROVERSE DESCREND
UPON THE MEAROPANCS...
THE PRESS HAD DISCOVERED
WHAT THEIR CANDIDATE HAD
DONE DUMPING THE DARK
YEARS OF VIETNAM...
by Berke Breathed
BILL INSISTS:
"I WAS D*****
PROUD TO SERVE
IN THE CANADIAN
NATIONAL MOOSE
MOUNTIES!"
At least I wasn't a draft dodger" says cat
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