Thursday November 21,2002 Vol.114. Issue No.64
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KANSAN
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
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Thanksgiving: A cornucopia of feasts provides food aplenty. Jayplay
Thanksgiving
Day play
cookin' up
the best provides
of spirit, p. 8
Students protest with body language
By Lindsey Hodel
lmodel.kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Supporters of peace tried a new approach to attract attention to their message against the potential war in Iraq.
Twenty students gathered on the lawn in front of Fraser Hall yesterday
afternoon to form a peace sign with their bodies.
"A lot of people only see us protesting things and think that we are angry with everybody," Jana Mackey, Hays junior, said. "But there are a lot of other important things going on besides protests."
The students arranged themselves in a circle around Mackey, who was standing
at the center. After taking their places, the students laid down to form the inside branches of the peace sign.
After forming the sign, students read a peace pledge aloud.
Early this month, the United Nations voted in support of military action against Iraq if officials did not comply with weapon inspections in their country. Saddam Hussein has until Dec. 8 to
submit a list of his weapons.
Members of Delta Force organized the event to show students' continued opposition to the military actions in the Middle East. But Mackey said she doubted the event would make a difference in the country's foreign policy.
"I don't think it will directly change anything but it serves as a rallying point to be around people who have the same
concerns," she said.
Even though she is disappointed with yesterday's turnout, events like this help encourage anti-war activists to continue to fight. Mackey said.
"I think it's sad more people didn't come," she said. "It was really short notice, but it was encour-
SEE BODY LANGUAGE ON PAGE 10A
Group advocates peace in Mideast
By Molly Gise
mgise@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Peace may start with a simple, civil conversation.
That philosophy is at the core of a new organization and its first-ever event tonight.
The Kansas Committee for a Just Peace in the Middle East is showing a documentary and leading a discussion afterward to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
GAZA STRIP
- 9:30 p.m. tonight
- Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St.
- S6 requested donation
- An informal discussion about peace in the Middle East will follow the film.
The group formed this semester to create awareness about the need for justice and peace in Israel and Palestine, said Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka, member of the group and associate professor of theater and film and women's studies.
The group is showing the documentary Gaza Strip at 9:30 tonight at Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St. The requested donation is $6.
The film by James Longley shows the violent reality of life in the Gaza Strip through the perspective of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy.
"People need to talk about it," she said. "We're hoping that we start a conversation here, and it grows and becomes a voice of concern that will start changing perceptions of what is happening."
Ajayi-Soyinka said the filmmaker's decision to show the conflict from the eyes of a child would give viewers a different perspective of the situation in the Middle East.
"When the media report news, when the policy-makers talk, we see men," she said. "But we now see innocent kids and how their lives are being cut short. When you kill off their young like that, what is going to be left? What is going to be the
SEE MIDEAST ON PAGE 10A
Jeromy Coffman wears X's on his hands.
Painted on with a thick black marker, the X's represent his commitment to abstinence from drugs, alcohol and promiscuous sex.
It wasn't Nancy Reagan's war on drugs, or the D.A.R.E. program or even a clever anti-drug ploy by the Ad Council that led him to steer clear of booze, needles and Marlboros. Coffman is straight edge.
For Coffman and thousands of youth across the country, straight edge is a response to what they believe is the tacit glamorization of drugs and sexuality in mainstream society. It is a personal choice and an expression of youth counterculture and rebellion.
"I woke up outside the venue passed out against the wall," he remembered. "I realized how fucked it was to get myself into that situation."
But Coffman, a 24-year-old Lawrence resident, wasn't always straight edge. He experimented with drugs and drank as a teenager in Topeka while becoming exposed to the world of '80s punk and metal. He wavered in and out of sobriety until in 1996, at 18 years old, he found himself submerged in a bout with a bottle of whiskey outside a former Lawrence punk haven known as The Outhouse.
Coffman hasn't had a drink since. He even wears a button now that reads, "Kiss me, I'm straight edge."
But, he said, as if to imply he was an exception to other youth. "I pretty much have a strong moral tendency anyway."
Increasingly, Coffman's case is an exception — at least as far as his commitment to the straight edge label is concerned. While he remains steadfast
in his decision to live poison-free, youth idealism has the propensity to fade away, and others who once preached the gospel of clean living are now backsliding.
Out of step
In 1981, Ian MacKaye, singer for the genre-busting hardcore band Minor Threat sang: "(I) don't drink! Don't smoke! Don't fuck! At least I can fucking think!"
The lyrics became a resounding alternative voice to the late '70s punk rock heroin chic.
viable bastard child of punk rock with more aggressive and sped-up song structures accented by politically charged lyrics. Until then, punk had
At the time, hardcore was fast becoming the
been immersed in drug and alco
her minnized in drug and alcohol abuse, including the heroin overdose of Sex Pistols' front man Sid Vicious and the drunken antics of Darby Crash and the Germs.
Minor Threat's
"Out of Step (With the World)" became a new anthem for counterculture youth tired of the fashion-driven, beer-soaked lifestyles of the punk and famous.
Followers began to wear X's on
their hands to symbolize their sobriety a marking once reserved for underaged teens at punk shows to signify to bartenders that the bearer was not old enough to buy a drink.
Music continued to follow the new concept. The surging genre of straight edge hardcore was becoming faster and more technical than its punk rock sibling, just as the notion of abstinence was becoming stronger in its foundation. It was a form of rebellion that didn't fit MTV's teen angst marketing scheme.
Poison-free youth
MacKaye has said he and Minor Threat never imagined what their declaration would become for thousands of impressionable youth.
"Straight edge' was the name of a song to him and a description of how he lived his life," said Amy Pickering, a longtime friend of MacKaye's. "It was never intended as a movement."
Nonetheless, from the East Coast to the West Coast, bands including Strife, Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today and, later in 1991, Earth Crisis appeared with a similar drug and alcohol-free message.
"Earth Crisis put a label on feelings I'd always had," said John Momberg, a 22-year-old Lawrence resident who was straight edge until last summer. "I didn't understand why other people didn't feel the same way."
Earth Crisis also had a more solid, hard-line message that included abstinence from the con-
SEE STRAIGHT EDGE ON PAGE 8A
Jeromy Coffman wears X's on his hands to represent his commitment to abstinence from drugs, alcohol and promiscuous sex. "I do it for me and not for anybody else," he said. The mask he wears symbolizes the resistance to smoke and other toxins at shows.
Longtime Jayhawk supporter and KU alumna Kathryn Krehbiel, right, cheers alongside friend Bonnie Kaufman at Tuesday night's game against Holy Cross at Allen Fieldhouse.
John Nowak/Kansar
Alumna shows support for band
By Jenna Goepfert
joegoeffert@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Kathryn Krehbiel, wearing a Marching Jayhawks polo shirt declaring her an "Honorary Member," hurried around the bleachers in Allen Fieldhouse. She quickly scrawled out a check for $150 and handed it to Tom Stidham, director of the men's basketball band.
"Hey, we've got to have our good luck hug," Krehbiel, 79, said as Stidham began to climb back on his director's podium.
"I missed you last week," Stidham said as they hugged.
"It's always something I think of," she said of the band.
Krehbiel and her late husband, Floyd played clarinet together in the KU marching band 60 years ago, she said.
For the last three years, Krehbiel has made a ritual of donating $150 for sodas for the men's basketball band — $3 for every member — before every home game. Three times a year, she treats them all to a barbecue. And before every game, the band repays her with a song.
Krehbiel travels to Lawrence from her home in Moundridge to watch the basketball games and show her appreciation for the band. The idea to buy every band member a soft drink came from her own
"I realized they play a whole concert every game and I thought, "They must be thirsty," she said.
The band members, who receive a $50 stipend for the season's work, show their appreciation during their pregame show, playing "It Had to be You," her husband's favorite song.
experiences playing.
At the song's conclusion, the band members stand and wave to Krehbiel, and she stands to wave back.
"I blow kisses to them," she said. "So that's the fun of being old."
Although Flovd Krehbiel, whom she
SEE ALUMNA ON PAGE 10A