Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Jodie Chester, Editor Marc Harrell, Business manager
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Tuesday, October 20,1998
Robert Novak / KANSAN
Editorials
Arts in Lawrence need support from the community to survive
In another move demonstrative of the declining support for the arts in Lawrence, the Lawrence Art Guild is being forced to consider closing its art gallery in the Lawrence Riverfront Plaza.
Following the resignation two weeks ago of Sharon Falkner, the gallery's director, guild members will meet Oct. 30 to determine the fate of the gallery, established in 1996 and host to the works of local and regional artists.
The gallery, which local painter Mick Braa said is run on a shoestring budget, experienced mild success during the first year and a half of its existence. During that time, the gallery drew as many as 200 spectators weekly and received a substantial number of volunteer hours from local artists to keep its doors open.
But during the last year, participatory local artists have become burdened by the lack of supportive clientele in the Lawrence area, and as the numbers of gallery visitors decreased, so did the amount of volunteer help required to keep the gallery running.
The gallery is housed in rent-free space on the second floor of the Riverfront Plaza, but the guild still has to muster up several hundred dollars a month to finance its operation.
Closing the Lawrence Art Guild would strike a blow to local artists.
In light of the increasing lack of support, the guild discussed the option of closing the gallery solely on the basis of economics. This development spurred Falkner's highly publicized resignation, and with the gallery now being managed by guild board members, its future is in even more serious limbo.
A facet of the gallery's failure can be attributed purely to its location. The traffic at the Riverfront Plaza seems almost dead. Therefore, an obvious alternative to shutting down the gallery is to find another location, perhaps on a more frequent part of Massachusetts Street. But this, of course, would require the financial support of other local organizations, the aid of community volunteers and increased involvement by student and local artists.
Another option is setting up the gallery in the potentially expanded space of the Lawrence Arts Center. But as yet another disheartening example of art proponents encountering closed doors, the arts center expansion proposal has run into strong opposition from community members fearful of harming the neighboring Carnegie Library's historical integrity.
In addition to seeking a new location and different avenues of support for the Riverfront gallery, the arts cause in Lawrence could be bolstered by increasing artists' involvement in public works projects and establishing a county arts council to bring together small local art groups.
The bottom line is that more Lawrence citizens, including students, need to support local art. We are nearing the day when the only public access art galleries in town will be the Lawrence Arts Center gallery, which might be denied expansion, and the University gallery, which was displaced by commercial interests earlier this semester. We must rescue this situation before the subversion of and decline in support for local art goes too far.
Nadia Mustafa for the editorial board
Nation must confront Shepard's death
Less than a week before National Coming Out Day, Matthew Shepard, a gay student from the University of Wyoming, was robbed, brutally beaten, lashed to a split rail fence in sub-freezing weather and left to die.
His assailants probably chose him because he posed little physical threat to them and because he was gay. Until about this nation re-examines its ideas about homosexuality, gay men or lesbians who dare to be true to themselves will be easy targets.
He succumbed to his injuries last week, during the final hours of a day that was celebrated by gay men and lesbians as a day of freedom. We must never forget what happened to Shepard on the night that he was attacked.
Hate crimes don't happen just in faraway places to strangers. They happen anywhere people are too afraid or apathetic to speak out against the crimes. They happen in
this community. A month ago, vandals burned a gay-pride flag where it hung on the side of a house.
As long as people do nothing, hate crimes will continue. As long as slurs and ignorance go unchallenged, there will be tolerance for a rising tide of hatred. As long as people ignore violence in hopes that it will disappear, people like Shepard's attackers will see nothing wrong with their actions.
Kansan staff
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
"If you would be loved, love and be lovable." — Benjamin Franklin
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
How to submit letters and guest columns
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All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stuffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Ann Premer (premer@kansan.com) or Tim Harrington (tharrington@kansan.com) at 846-4810. If you have general questions or comments, email the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 846-4810.
Perspective
Hate-crime laws invite more distrust, violence
The murder of Matthew Shepard touched off a wave of denouncements, from Don Rowland, office coordinator of the KU student organization Queers and
It has been odd to watch both conservatives and gay activists agreeing to the point where they are trying to see who can best articulate the awfulness of the arrogacy.
Allies, to President Clinton. If anything good can possibly result from this tragedy, it has been that nobody is staying silent.
Andrew Marino
opinion @ kansan.com
The least people should be able to expect is that nothing should go
nothing else bad should come of it.
Unfortunately, Rowland and Clinton seem intent on remembering Shepard by assaulting the First Amendment. At a memorial service last Monday outside the Kansas Union, Rowland asked the public to support The Hate Crime Prevention Act of 1998 now under consideration by the U.S. Congress. The bill would enhance penalties for violent crimes whose victims are chosen because of their sexual orientation.
However, the case surrounding Shepard's death illustrates why enacting hate-crime legislation is a bad idea.
Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney were charged with aggravated robbery and kidnapping with intent to inflict bodily injury or terrorize the victim and first degree murder making them eligible for execution — hate crime or not.
Right now, the law doesn't care whether the victim was gay. If someone commits
cold-blooded murder, they will be executed or put away for life. All human beings are given the same value. Hate-crime laws could change the equation. All of a sudden, murdering a person belonging to one group of people isn't as bad as killing someone from another.
The second problem with the legislation is determining just what constitutes a hate crime. Police investigating Shepard's death think that robbery was the primary motive and that he was only in part chosen because he was gay. How would a prosecutor prove that homophobia was running through the killers' minds when the police evidence doesn't necessarily prove it?
Henderson and McKinney probably would be subjected to expansive background checks. They would be on trial for their opinions. The government would be punishing someone for what are thought crimes. Repercussions for thoughts and ideas Rowland, Clinton and other reactionaries calling for expanding hate-crime laws would undoubtedly be against.
It surely is not a good idea to treat crimes against one class more seriously than other crimes of the same nature.
The purpose of these laws may be to reduce hatred, but the kind of thinking behind such laws may lead to less tolerance. Why not pass tougher laws and distribute longer sentences for all attacks on humans? This is an agenda that could gain the support of groups such as Queers and Allies and the Christian Coalition — making that an issue they agree on.
Marino is a Prairie Village sophomore in political science.
Unpredictable weather plagues life on campus
OK, maybe it's because I haven't had air conditioning for the past two weeks, or because I've heard people talking about arks, but I've begun to really
talking about arks, but I notice how the weather
Why must Mother Nature continue to mess with our heads? She's got her evil child, El Niño, working night and day across the nation — which, I'm sure, violates more than a few child
Nick Spacek
Guest columns
notice how the weather works here. We've got some varied weather at the University of Kansas; it goes from hot to cold at the drop of a hat.
labor laws — to mess with our weather patterns.
El Nino, being a new weather system, takes its time much like any young child. We've been hearing about this kid since September of last year. As we want nice, consistent weather, the bastard child has begun to wreak havoc upon the collective psyche of the KU student body: The weather starts out cold and gloomy, or cold and sunny, or rainy and gloomy, so on and so forth, and continues that way for several days. Then, as if by magic, it all goes away overnight and the campus awakens to a beautiful, almost cliched, spring day.
We all comment on the lovely weather we're having and nay saying the fore-
Then, the very next day, the evil returns — bit by bit. It gets a little windy, then the clouds begin to roll in and then the temperature drops. Slowly but surely, we go back to that lousy weather we swore couldn't possibly return.
The weather stays evil for several days, with us cursing Bryan Busy all the while, then the pattern repeats itself. Cunning. So cunning and evil that El Niño seems to be a villain that Christopher Walken would play in an instant.
But the wind always is noticed here. Why? Because we're on a hill, surrounded by the plains. Wind comes to us like a tornado to a trailer park. It's as if we have a huge sign saying, "Kick me, blow me away, make it next to impossible to get my cigarette lit." Oh, well. Just remember — El Niño is a child. And kids grow up so fast these days that soon he'll stop his rambunctious ways to go sulk in his room, wearing all black, and really understanding the lyrics to "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
caster's predictions for the next day — "Temporary my butt! It can't go away! He's only a scientist with years of training and experience. What could he possibly know?"
And it is all the more evil by the wind — the howling, screeching, never-ceasing wind. Oops, got a little carried away.
Spacek is a Lansing sophomore in pre-journalism.
Feedback
KU has no right to censor internet
1
In Wednesday's Kansan, Liz Wristen reported the KU Facts Advisory Committee is developing University internet content policies. Issues such as censorship, on-site links, and restricting student web sites for only instructional research projects relating to a University mission were discussed in the article.
I reason two issues are at play here: affiliation and content.
First, student web pages aren't allowed a direct www.ukans.edu domain, although the ukans.edu still
appears in the location, just as it does on an e-mail account.
If I receive e-mail from a ukans.edu location, I don't assume whoever sent it is representing KU so why would I think differently of a site I am visiting on the web? For the sake of argument, I must assume someone viewing a site is unable to distinguish the difference, so I suggest a possible, simple solution.
If not allowed access to the www.ukans.edu domain, a site could explicitly state "This site is listed by the KU Campus Internet Association, but otherwise not officially affiliated with the
University of Kansas." For example, you can view my mostly informative site at http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~sbcarter.
A censor is a supervisor of public morals, someone who tells people how to behave and whose task it is to examine literature, etc., and to remove or prohibit anything considered immoral.
If we don't tolerate censorship in University libraries, then why is it even being considered for the electronic version.
Brian Carter Lawrence sophomore