WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10,2004
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
3A
NEWS
MLK speaker funds approved
By STEPHANIE FARELY
sfarley@kansan.com
KANSAN SUMMER WRITE
The Lawrence City Commission approved a request from the Ecumenical Fellowship, Inc., at last night's meeting.
The Fellowship requested $5,000 in additional funding for the 20th annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration to pay for sneaker fees.
One of the speakers for the event will be Terrence Roberts, one of nine African-American students who entered a segregated high school in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957.
The celebration will be held Jan. 13 to 17. Roberts will speak on Jan. 17 in the Lied Center.
Rev. William Dulin, president for the Fellowship, thanked the commission for its past support and participation with the event. Good speakers are nice to bring in for events, but good speakers also cost money, he said. Transportation and lodging for the speakers are provided at the cost of the Fellowship.
The Fellowship, Dulin said, passed up Coretta Scott King, a human rights activist and wife of Martin Luther King Jr. Scott King's initial speaking cost is
about $12,000, not including transportation and lodging.
Dennis Highberger, city commissioner, said his only concern with providing the additional funding was the commission needed to be careful it was not funding a religious event or activity.
The religious concern can be avoided by centering the commission's support around the civil rights legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. city commissioner David Dunfield said.
"We're here to make a difference." Barbee said.
The celebration is a wonderful example of community building, and It's an honor and a great opportunity to have one of the Little Rock Nine come to Lawrence and to also be able to allow students to see and hear him speak, city commissioner Sue Hack said.
The Fellowship is already receiving $1,400 in funding for the celebration from the city's general operating fund.
Sue Hickok said.
Ree. Leo Barbee Jr.
Fellowship vice president, said he thought people sometimes forgot that Martin Luther King Jr. stood for everyone and was not just a religious leader.
- Edited by Ryan Greene
Car bomb kills 2 Kansans in Iraq
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
IOPEKA, Kan. — The first Kansas Army National Guard soldiers to die in combat since the Vietnam War were killed by a car bomb on Monday in Baghdad, the Army said Tuesday.
21, of Troy, the Kansas Army National Guard said. Both soldiers were members of Battery B, 2nd Battalion, 150th Field Artillery.
Killed were Staff Sgt.
Clinton Lee Wisdom, 39, of
Atchison, and Spe. Don Clarv
Arnley. The two soldiers died after they positioned their vehicle between a convoy they were assigned to protect and a vehicle driven by insurgents that exploded. Kansas National Guard officials said.
Masked girls deliver guerrilla tactics
BY LAURA FRANCOVIIELLA
francovigliola@kansan.com
KANSAN STAR WRITER
The Guerrilla Girls call themselves masked avengers of women's rights for good reason: The artists wear gorilla masks.
These masked avengers, who compared themselves to other masked do-gooders such as Robin Hood and Superwoman, fight sexism and racism in the art world, and throughout all culture, with educational presentations and lectures.
The Guerrilla Girls gave a presentation to an audience of more than 200 men and women last night at the Kansas Union. The women used pseudonyms of famous artists, Frida Kahlo and Kathe Kollwitz, to disguise their true identities. They said they wanted to remain anonymous protect their professional careers as artists and to focus on the issues in their presentation.
"We're anonymous freedom
Kahlo and Kollwitz said their tactics were like guerrilla warfare. They used humor, shocking statistics and female stereotypes to drive their presentation.
fighters in culture," said Kahlo. "We strike with merely pens and a fierce tongue."
to drive them. No woman had ever won the Oscar for best director, they said. The women responded to this statistic by presenting a billboard of an anatomically correct Oscar to the audience. He was white, pale, pudgy, losing his hair and very modest, said Kahlo.
Goes-After-Black Wife
The Guerrilla Girls also said women needed to reclaim the
The Guerrilla Girls were blunt in describing stereotypes of women. They showed slides of their ethnic doll collection; the slides were meant to offend every person in the room, they said. The dolls included "Lauren, the Jewish-American Princess," "Tiffany, the Foxy Fly Girl" and "Susan, the White-Girl-Who Goes-After-Black-Men."
word "bitch."
"Any woman that succeeds at anything is called a bitch," Kahlou said.
word "bitch."
Kahlou said. Kahlou and Kohlwitz joked that they had done important research into the distinction between the words "bitch" and "slut".
"A bitch sleeps with everyone and a slut sleeps with everyone but you," Kahlo said.
Kahlo said the presentation was meant to capture people's imaginations and make them laugh.
Liberty Grayek, a Plainville graduate student in art history, already knew what the Guerrilla Girls were about.
Girls were told, "They reinforced the idea that inequality has to be addressed," Gravek said.
Kathleen Lynch, Shawnee sophomore, said the Guerrilla Girls informal'on was relevant to her experiences in art history classes.
"It applies to every field," she said. "There are so many double standards."
Instead of covering both men and women equally, Lynch said her art history classes, especially in high school, focused on only white, male artists.
The Guerrilla Girls' roots are in New York City's art world, but they have progressed to defend women's rights in all genres. Kahlo and Kollwitz were two founders of the Guerrilla Girls, which began 19 years ago. The women would not specify where or how many Guerrilla girls there were, but they said any woman could be a Guerrilla Girl.
Kollwitz said, despite their presentations, they hadn't succeeded in bringing the word "feminism" back to life yet.
"Feminists have always been demonized," Kahlo said.
The two women still want to work in communities to promote female empowerment.
"One goal is to reinvent the F-word." Kollwitz said.
Edited by Marissa Stephenson
Ashcroft, Evans leaving Cabinet
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Attorney General John Ashcroft, a favorite of conservatives, and Commerce Secretary Don Evans, one of President Bush's closest friends, resigned yesterday, the first members of the Cabinet to leave as Bush heads from re-election into his second term.
Both Ashcroft and Evans have served in Bush's Cabinet from the start of the administration.
removal of his gall bladder.
Asoheroff, in a five-page, handwritten letter to Bush, said, "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved."
terror has occurred." Yet I believe that the Department of Justice would be well served by new leadership and fresh inspiration," said Ashcroft, whose health problems earlier this year resulted in
Evans, a longtime friend from Texas, wrote Bush, "While the promise of your second term shines bright, I have concluded with deep regret that it is time for me to return home."
"I believe that my energies and talents should be directed toward other challenging horizons," he said. Ashcroft's letter was dated Nov. 2, Election Day.
Bush issued statements of praise for both men - and for the policies they advanced.
"John Ashcroft has worked tirelessly to help make our country safer," the president said. "John has served our nation with honor, distinction and integrity."
Bush's farewell to Evans was more effusive and more personal, fitting to their more than three decades of friendship dating to the oil business in Midland, Texas, where they would attend church together and meet every day for a three-mile jog.
"Don Evans is one of my most trusted friends and advisers." Bush said. "Don has worked to advance economic security and prosperity for all Americans. He has worked steadfastly to make sure America continues to be the best place in the world to do business."
Ashcroft, 62. has been well liked by many conservatives. At the same time, he has been a lightning rod for criticism of his handling of the U.S. end of the war against terror, especially the detention of terror suspects.
Evans, 58, was instrumental in Bush's 2000 campaign and came with him to Washington. Evans has told aides he was
ready for a change. He was mentioned as a possible White House chief of staff in Bush's second term, but the president decided to keep Andy Card in that job.
One name being mentioned for Evans' job at Commerce is Mercer Reynolds, national finance chairman for the Bush campaign, who raised more than $260 million to get him re-elected.
Speculation about a successor to Ashcroft has centered on his former deputy, Larry Thompson, who recently took a job as general counsel at PepsiCo. If appointed, Thompson would be the nation's first black attorney general. Others prominently mentioned include Bush's 2004 campaign chairman, former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, and White House general counsel Alberto Gonzales.
Tunnel of op. pres. sion
An interactive, multi-media experience that teaches about oppression.
November 16-18 $ ^{th} $ Hashinger Hall
5:30 - 9:30 p.m.
For more information or to volunteer, call the Multicultural Resource Center 864-4350
---
Δ