Friday inside Sacred Sword open
Sacred Sword, a store specializing in swords, daggers and "fantasy art," opened Monday in downtown Lawrence. The store also offers Japanese touch therapy. PAGE 3A
Vol. 114 Issue No.8
This art is smokin'
Lawrence residents can buy art from an unlikely source — an aging cigarette vending machine. PAGE 5A
Freshman finds balance
La'Pourchea McConico used this summer to
become acquainted with campus and find a job. Now she balances class, work and organizations. PAGE8A
Football season debut
Tomorrow the football team will take on Northwestern at Memorial Stadium
for the first game of the season. PAGE 1B
Women's soccer
The women's soccer team prepares to face off
against Northwestern in the first game of the season today. PAGE3B
Two-day forecast tomorrow sunday 8064 8257 continued relief clearing out
— Matt Laubhan, KUJH-TV
Talk to us
Tell us your news. Contact Michelle Burhenn, Lindsay Hanson or Leah Shaffer at 864-4810 or editor@kansan.com
index
Briefs 2A
Opinion 4A
Sports 1B
Sports briefs 2B
Horoscopes 6B
Comic 6B
KANSAN
The Student Newspaper of the University of Kansas
Friday, August 29, 2003
Rainy relief
Courtney Kuhlen/Kansan
Rain clouds emerged yesterday in downtown Lawrence, 7th and Massachusetts streets. Rain fell during late afternoon giving soil and crops a healthy dose of hydration. Tomorrow's forecast calls for isolated thunder showers and a 30 percent chance of precipitation.
Industry cracks down on downloads
By Robert Perkins
rperkins@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
SEE DOWNLOAD ON PAGE 6A
The Raytown, Mo., senior quit using the popular peer-to-peer file sharing service many people use to download music files at the end of the last school year, in part because of legal pressure from the music industry.
Clinton Enyear doesn't use Kazaa anymore.
In an 11-page letter sent on August 14, Cary Sherman, RIAA president and
Concerned that they might be taking a "shotgun" approach in their crackdown, Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, made an inquiry into the RIAA's legal actions.
"The industry seems to be cracking down more," he said.
According to research from the NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y., based research firm, Enyeart is part of a growing trend.
U. S. District Judge John Bates said that under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Verizon was required to give the RIAA the name of a Kazaa user who had allegedly shared hundreds of music recordings.
In a news release last week Russ Crupnick, vice president of the NPD Group, said that after the Recording Industry Association of America began a campaign to prosecute individual file sharers, illegal downloads declined sharply.
"Because the initial drop followed well-publicized legal efforts, there's evidence to show that the RIAA's tactics may be having its desired impact on reducing file sharing among consumers," he said.
Since April, the RIAA issued more than 1,000 subpoenas.
As a result, file sharers can no longer count on their ISPs to shield them from subpoenas from the RIAA.
The "well-publicized legal efforts" refer to the RIAA's April 24 announcement that it won its court case against Internet service provider Verizon.
Student graduates after 30-year delay
Lawrence resident recently found out that he qualified for a general studies degree
By Zack Hemenway
zhenmenway@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
When the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences began using the Academic Record Tracking System in 1986, student records became standardized and computerized. But records for students from before the switch aren't accessed with mouse-clicks and typestrokes. Instead, CLAS employees utilize record-keeping devices of a non-electronic nature, a method which has given these erstwhile students a nickname among advisers.
staffers a new location for students at BMS — "The students before 86 — the oldies but goodies — we call them 'folder people,'" said Pamela Houston, CLAS undergraduate services director.
The students are certainly "oldies" but their "goodie" status is questionable; the folders hold the records of students who attended class before 1986 but never graduated, a file-cabinet full of postponed and forgotten dreame
Courtney Kuhlen/Kansan
From the spring of 1974 to March of this year, Lawrence resident Kyle Thompson was one of these "folder people." But one phone call took him out of the file-cabinet and into an entirely different student category: University of Kansas graduate.
graduate.
Thompson attended the University from 1969 to 1974, pursuing a B.A. in philosophy. Advanced placement language tests, still in their early stages, weren't an option for Thompson. Also, a Western Civilization class cut short by University-wide riots left him a few credits short of his degree. But finishing up a philosophy degree wasn't high on Thompson's list of priorities.
"The world was a different place at that time," he said. "Getting a degree didn't seem that important."
Getting a degree a degree more than a diploma. Thompson said he needed money more than a diploma. He took a series of heavy-labor jobs, before flourishing at the Kansas City Star. Over the next 15 years, he climbed the organization's hierarchy, rising from a newspaper carrier up to a high-ranking data processing position. Thompson said his lack of a degree was never an issue during his ascent. In fact, his studious nature and bookish appearance led people to assume he was a college grad, he said.
Kyle Thompson, Lawrence resident, shared a laugh with a teddy bear given to him by his mother as a graduation present. Thompson recently discovered he was a KU graduate because of a change in degree requirements.
"People at the Star would always ask me, 'what's your masters degree in?' " he said. "And I'd say, uh, no."
The Star provided Thompson with a comfortable income to support his wife and two young children, but he found the increased responsibilities of his new job brought an increased degree of frustration. Thompson said he worked under 20 bosses at any given time, and it seemed
like all 20 were often upset with him.
like an 20 were often upset with him. "I'd come home practically in tears," he said. "I had to find something else."
At the time, he found out how he could order the Times and supplemented his income providing papers for 15 daily subscribers. He decided, the Kansas City area was his for the taking. He left his job at the Star to start PaperBoys, Inc.
and something else.
Ironically, salvation for this non-graduate came from a newspaper whose name is synonymous with scholarship. Thompson and his brother had noticed a demand for the daily New York Times when they were delivering the Star.
Fifteen years later, those subscribers multiplied into almost 2,000 daily deliveries to houses and businesses,and
SEE GRADUATE ON PAGE 6A
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