THOOD AUGUST 10, 2007
4A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
FRIDAY,AUGUST 30,2002
TALKTOUS
Jay Krail
editor
864-4854 or jkrail@kansan.com
Brooke Hesler and Kyle Ramsey
managing editors
864-4854 or bhesler@kansan.com and
kramsey@kansan.com
Laurel Burchfield
readers' representative
864-4810 or lburchfield@kansan.com
Maggie Koerth and Amy Potter
opinion editors
864-4924 or opinion@kansan.com
Amber Agee
business manager
864-4358 or advertising@kansan.com
Eric Ketting
retail sales manager
864-4358 or
advertising@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson
general manager and news adviser
864-7667 or mqglison@kansan.com
Matt Fisher
sales and marketing adviser
864-7666 or mfisher@kansan.com
'KANSAN EDITORIAL BOARD
Change of offensive display a good move by Cabela's
A store has recently opened in which there was a shooting arcade setup as a diorama of an African village. One might think this was a joke, but it was not.
The sad reality is that the arcade really existed. It was at a store called Cabela's, an outdoor sporting store near the Kansas Speedway.
The walls were adorned with the heads of dead deer and elk, and no shortage of other animals in dioramas, many of them endangered species. The arcade in question was meant to depict a safari scene.
Given that, it seemed a little strange that it would depict a village. Several white explorers were camped next to the village, and a black man in African dress stood guard with a spear while another carried a pot, collecting water. The targets were placed on various inanimate objects in close proximity to the mannequins. One of the most blatantly offensive targets was a pot with a wide-eyed African character hiding inside, the target aligned on the pot directly in front of his forehead.
Many people began to take notice of the shooting gallery. The suggestion of unloading ammunition on a tribal village was so offensive to John Hoopes, KU anthropology professor, he brought the matter to KCTV 5 news.
You might see how this could have been offensive if you imagined yourself as a Massai or other African tribesman, watching people fire loads of imaginary bullets into a scene meant to depict your home. But then most people don't bother to look at things from the tribesman's perspective. Do you think this scene would have been built if it
instead depicted George Armstrong Custer's camp, even if it had a few wooden Indians?
Maybe this would have made more sense if we imagined it as an affluent suburban family's living room. Shoot the remote control, knock out the ceiling light, or see if you can shoot the tags off the dog's collar. Can you shoot the tie off Dad's neck? Does it really matter where the bullet would go after it ripped through that piece of polyester and silk?
This depiction of blasting guns all over a village was not only offensive for depicting someone's home, but also because most of Africa has suffered under European colonialism for the last few centuries, and is still deep in repercussions. If those reasons are still not enough, European and American sponsored guns are still fired on villagers. However, the people firing the shots are large companies looking for oil and other resources, rather than foreign nations looking for territory and slaves.
Thanks to Dr. Hoopes' efforts, Cabela's announced that it would change the display. If you wish to discuss this, you can contact Dr. Hoopes at hoopes@ku.edu.
Also, you can contact the manager of Cabela's to thank them for their willingness to change the shooting gallery:
Ron Soucie, General Manager
Cabela's
10300 Cabela Drive
Kansas City, Kansas 66111
(217) 328-0322
(913) -328-0322
Call 864-0500
Free for All
San Lane for the editorial board
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.
To all those smokers, if you want to kill yourselves with a cancer stick that you're addicted to, then fine. But do not walk by me on campus, blow it in my face, and expect me not to backhand you.
campus to get their MRS's... hmmm.
I did laundry for the first time the other day, and I thought it would be OK to put my bright green bathwater in with all my colors. Well, all my clothes came out with these green fuzzballs on them and I look like some sort of Sesame Street hobo.
I'm curious what the ratio is of sorority girls that are psychology majors or are on
is it bad that it's only the fourth day of class and I've already skipped four classes? I think not. I'd rather be sleeping.
Hey, I just wanted to tell you guys that it's pretty sad that the only booty call I'm making is to you guys. Thanks.
Yeah, Eric Boria, maybe you could write another editorial tomorrow and drop a few other names about New York City.
is it bad that it's only the fourth day of class and I've already skipped four classes? I think not. I'd rather be sleeping.
I'd like to give a shout-out to the junkie who hit my car. I know where you live.
图
I am right now circling around the Burge parking lot. I'm ten minutes late for class, I'm trying to find someone so I can follow them to their car and take their parking spot. This is ridiculous. I paid money for a pass that I can't even use and I'm just sick of it. Parking should be free at the University of Kansas if no one gets to ever park.
--for my parents.
OK, now. I am in the other parking lot, you know, the parking lot by Watkins, er whatever, and it's full, too. Yeah.
SACK'S VIEW
KANSAN REPORT CARD
Steve Sack/Knight Ridder Tribune
Pass:
Playboy Centerfolds. Here's to the girls who bore all in the name of school spirit and Bia 12 conference pride.
- Possible Senate Resolution. Cheers to Student Senate for immediately looking into resolutions to save KU Info. Now students have the opportunity to see student government working on issues that really matter to the student body.
New meal plan. Students now have the option of putting money on their card so they can eat lunch on campus. No more long hikes back to Daisy Hill to eat lunch.
Fail:
Western Civ classes. The woeful budget cuts have forced two sections of Western Civilization to close, cramming even more people into the remaining lecture classes. At least they'll get the concept of "huddled masses yearning to breathe free".
Riot at Jefferson Commons. Throwing bottles and cans at the cops is probably not the best way to avoid getting an MIP
Elimination of V-8. Coca-Cola told the Union to get rid of the vegetable beverage, even though it doesn't have a similar drink to replace it. Sounds like somebody needs a nap.
PERSPECTIVES
Movie prompts soul searching
GUEST COMMENTARY
Funny how movies, even the worst of them, can inspire you to do something different with your life.
In May I went to see Kissing Jessica Stein, a film about one straight woman who becomes a lesbian for a brief part of her life. Immediately after leaving the theater I called my good, straight friend, Sarah and asked her to be my girlfriend for the summer.
Marla Keown opinion@kansan.com
She turned me down and I remained a single lesbian wannabe for the rest of the summer.
Before the summer, I had never questioned my sexuality. I thought of myself as a female who was much in love with penises. Sure, a couple of times I had (gasp) kissed a girl or even made out with a few of them, but I had always assumed the enjoyment came from the reaction of the nearby gawking males.
But for once in my life I started wondering if this desire to date Sarah was something more than another one of my easily inspired adventures.
I even prepared a coming out of the not so lesbian, but almost there, closer speech
I started questioning my every thought and move. Walks to classes became more thought provoking. Instead of checking out whoever walked past me, I started wondering why I couldn't lift my eyes past a girl's chest level.
Talking to girls became even harder; I questioned my natural flirtatiousness and wondered if the girl was flirting back or not.
I confided my secret aspiration to my closest friend Amanda. Surprisingly, she too had a secret crush on one of her straight girlfriends. Together we plotted how to talk to them, score a date and hopefully have the grand reward of being their lesbian wannabe girlfriends for the summer.
During the scheming though, we spent every other second trying to convince ourselves that we were nothing but a straight line.
We reasoned that our baby breasts were the cause of our ever-wandering eyes.
We decided that the only reason we checked out any female passerby was nothing more than being fashionably aware.
We even tried to convince ourselves that our wannabe lesbian lovers were nothing more than attainable role models we picked for ourselves. Yet through all of the pathetic attempts of psychoanalysis, I still had a hidden urge to make Sarah my girlfriend.
Then I took a summer Journalism 101
class. There, during a lecture on emotional persuasion, I realized I had been duped.
Kissing Jessica Stein persuaded me into believing that I had lesbian material in me. Jessica Stein's personality and livelihood proved credible enough for me. The seeming realness of the characters suckered me into accepting the idea of living a lesbian lifestyle.
Alongside the credibility of the characters came the enticing logistics. If a 30-year-old straight girl could become a lesbian for awhile, then why couldn't I?
The flawlessly imperfect relationship between Jessica Stein and her lesbian girlfriend drew in my emotions. Funny how it took two months for me to realize that the wonderfully real connection between the two was nothing more than good acting.
It's strange how one movie can create such chaos in my once simple lifestyle. I still find myself living in a lesbian wamabe costume.
I continuously check out any attractive female that walks into Conoco during my shift, yet I immediately point them out to the closest male coworker before my gaze drops too low past eye level.
And every time I meet up with Sarah, I blush and giggle like a silly schoolgirl.
Hopefully someday I'll be able to have my ever-swaying thoughts without feeling the need to excuse them.
Marla Keown is a Topeka sophomore majoring in journalism.
KJHK Webcast under threat from recording industry fees
Nearly two years ago the record industry had climbing CD sales and was decrying widespread piracy at the hands of Napster. Napster is gone and the record industry now has falling CD sales and is still whining about widespread piracy. Whatever the cause of the decline, the record industry has set its sights on a new target to blame: Internet radio.
Webcasting transmits radio over the Internet.
KU's own KJHK (90.7) claims to be the first station ever to stream a continuous, live signal, which they continue to broadcast online today.
their webcasting or shut it down completely as a result of fee demands by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
The task of determining these new webcasting fees fell upon the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel.
Greg Holmquist opinion@kansan.com
In recent months though, a number of stations like KJHK have been forced to restructure
However, the real damage has already been done.
GUEST COMMENTARY
Webcasts, particularly from small college stations are already being bullied out of commission by the threat of the exorbitant fees which the RIAA seems intent on establishing.
In reality, the wrangling over new rate structures has little to do with the future of small scale webcasting. For all of the RIAA's rhetoric about e-piracy and artist royalties the real goal is to solidify the RIAA's position in a market with huge
potential.
currently it is limited mostly to home computers, but webcasting has the potential to become a personalized radio available wherever and whenever you want it.
This is a fact not lost on media giants whose lobbying budgets dwarf those of the independent webcaster. Still, the record
Imagine the threat to the industry's business model if you had a choice in radio that went beyond a dozen Top 40 stations.
industry's concern is well placed
Granting consumers these kinds of choices don't seem to be at the top of the RIAA agenda though. And what incentive do they have to even consider them?
The RIAA has the distinct advantage of controlling a vast majority of the content that webcasts require: the music. Despite their protests, commercial webcasters are virtually forced into an arrangement with the organization that Broadcast com founder Mark Cuban once termed a cartel.
Whether it is for profit or commercial use, webcasting will remain along with the commercials, pop music, and all of the
other joys that mainstream radio has to offer. Volunteer stations will become the Napsters of webcasting and, as low budget stations adapt or fold under new rate structures, once innovative and aggressive webcasts will follow in the footsteps of The Lazer, KLZR, and change their format to a traditional Top 40 structure.
For the moment, KJHK seems to be holdingstrong. We should be proud to have a station viable enough to stand up to the threat of devastating costs and retroactive fees. As of Wednesday morning KJHK's home page had a link titled "Internet Radio survives for the time being."
Holmquist is a Topeka junior majoring in psychology and business.