THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY, AUGUST 17, 2007
NEWS
3A
ENTERTAINMENT
Granada to hold trivia event
Cast of VH1's pop culture game show will compete with locals
BY MATT LINDBERG mlindberg@kansan.com
Fans of the VH1 game show "World Series of Pop Culture" could get a chance to play alongside some of their favorite cast members this weekend.
Twenty-eight contestants from the popular show are coming to Lawrence on Saturday to compete in "Pop Culture Scramble," a trivia event similar to the television show but with a twist.
"No team members from the show will be together; they will all be mixed," said Andy Morton, a contestant on the show as a member of the Westerburg High team.
Morton and his Westerburg High teammates, who are from Lawrence, put together the one-time event with other cast members from this summer's second season. In addition to new teammates for the cast members, another twist will allow audience members to try out to join the trivia challenge.
"Twenty slots will go to audience members who will be chosen to play based on three qualifying tests they take before the event takes place,"
Morton said. "The tests are quickly graded and the top scorers go into a hat and are drawn at random."
Although Morton and his Westburg High teammates were not the champions of the series' second season, he said his experience with the rest of the cast was positive.
"We all came out of it as friends and formed a strong bond quickly," Morton said. He credited the strong bond of the cast as the reason for creating the event.
"It just started as an idea that everyone wanted to get back together and have a reunion," he said. "It just snowballed from there and got bigger as time progressed after the show ended taping in March."
Aside from great friendships, Morton also walked away from the show with a new perspective on reality television.
"When you see people on a game show, you always think, 'Why can't the person you're watching answer the easy questions being asked?' Morton said. "But being on the show I saw another side of the television process and learned your adrenaline is high at those moments and that it's
not always fun at times during the filming of the show."
Morton said he seemed to be more recognizable around Lawrence to people who watched the show, but he also said he did not let it go to his head.
"it's odd more than anything," he said. "People have been really nice though, so it's humbling."
Pop Culture Scramble is at 4 p.m. on Saturday at the Granada, 10th and Massachusetts streets. The event costs $5 for people 21 and older and $7 for those younger than 21.
If you would like to be a contestant, the qualifying test will take place at 3 p.m., one hour before Pop Culture Scramble begins. Morton said those who attended would be in for a good time.
"It will be fun to come out and meet the teams," Morton said. "Not often can you meet the cast. We are very fun and personable; we all know how to hang out and have fun."
For a complete list of cast members attending Pop Culture Scramble, visit the event's MySpace page, www. myspace.com/popculturescram.
—Edited by Tara Smith
BENEFIT
BY SARAH NEFF
Running for clean water Blue Planet Run members will come to Lawrence
sneff@kansan.com
world who don't have access to safe drinking water. Twenty athletes are participating in the event, and each runs 10 miles a day.
A team of runners in an around-the-world relay promoting safe drinking water will pass its baton in Lawrence on Saturday. The team, a part of the Blue Planet Run relay, will make its exchange
at 9 a.m. at the Wells Overlook County Park entrance.
Mary Chervenak, 39, began running recreationally when she was in college. She said she decided to join the Blue Planet Run because of the challenge it presented. One of the
The relay run will pass through Lawrence on its way to Kansas City. The 95-day run began in New York City on June 1. From there it went
"This run is about providing safe drinking water to the more than 1.1 billion people who lack access."
NANCY FULLERTON Manager of corporate citizenship Dow Chemical Company
across the ocean to Europe, then to Russia, Mongolia, China, Japan and back to California. The run will end in New York City on Sept. 4 after making its way through the United States.
The Blue Planet Run is an international relay to raise money for the millions of people around the
highlights of the run was the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, she said.
said. "Then the sun came up and the desert was probably a million different colors and I thought 'Wow, who does this?' Who gets to run in the desert and see this?"
"My shift started at 3:00 a.m. It was freezing cold and I was running knee deep in the sand," Chervenak
Chervenak visited countries with water problems as she trekked around the world.
She said when she was in Ireland there was a water war and farmers
were diverting water because of the shortage.
Chervenak said she also stayed near Lake Baikal while she was in Russia. Although it's the largest freshwater lake in the world, Chervenak said it wasn't accessible to the people because the infrastructure beneath had crumbled.
"In Mongolia we had seen people walking miles to get water," Chervenak said.
The Dow Chemical Co. sponsors the Blue Planet Run. Nancy Fullerton, manager of corporate citizenship for Dow, said the run gives Dow the opportunity to apply its science and technology to the world's challenges.
"This run is about providing safe drinking water to the more than 1.1 billion people who lack access," Fullerton said. "One hundred percent of all individual donations will go directly to safe drinking water projects around the world."
More information can be found at www.blueplanetrun.org.
— Edited by Amelia Freidline
CAMPUS
Bargains among the posters Union art sale provides inspiration, conversation
ideters@kansan.com
Claire Vawter, Olathe freshman, moved into Oliver Hall on Monday and noticed the walls were bare. She soon changed that.
Vawter found plenty of items to decorate her room at this week's poster sale at the Kansas Union. She bought an Audrey Hepburn poster earlier in the week and later went back to look for a poster of the movie "300" for her boyfriend.
"These are kind of for fun to spruce up the room," she said.
She thumbed through posters of James Dean and the movies "Jaws" and "Rocky" and said looking at the posters gave her some creative ideas that she could use in her artwork.
The sale is sponsored by Student Union Activities. The College Poster Sale Co., based in New York, is providing the posters to students at discount rates of up to 40 percent from retail prices.
Most of the 1,000 items in stock sell for $7 to $9, though some cost more. Karen Krinsky, the company's poster tour director, said popular-selling items were posters featuring Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Muhammad Ali and drinking posters. The best-selling item, Krinsky said, was the "300" poster that depicts lead actor Gerard Butler, who played King Leonidas in the film, is standing at the center with his famous line "Tonight we dine in hell" written behind him.
Like Vawter, Peter Ciurej, Omaha, Neb., freshman, just moved into his residence hall and wanted some decorative material.
"The walls were looking pretty bare, so I thought I'd spruce it up a little bit."
Ciurej found just the right poster for his room. He bought a "Dumb and Dumber" poster that pictured Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels riding on a motorcycle through freezing weather.
Susan Hoffman, assistant director of union programs, said students aren't the only ones getting some good deals.
Hoffman said SUA and Union Programs receive 20 percent of the proceeds, and the money helps pay for other campus events. Hoffman said they hadn't decided where the proceeds from the poster sale would go yet, but the money from last year's sale helped pay for free cosmic bowling at the Jaybowl for the school year and other campus events.
"I just like the movie," he said. "It's a funny movie, it's a good poster. It'll be a good conversation piece."
"Ive even seen faculty and staff picking up a few things," Hoffman said.
Jon Goering/KANSAN
"We give it all back in some way"
Hoffman said.
A student browses through the selections at the poster sale. Student Union Activities receives part of the sale's proceeds. SUA used the proceeds last year to pay for free cosmic bowling at Jawbowl.
A dead victim is carried from the rubble on Wednesday after a coordinated suicide attack late Tuesday, in the town late of Qahataniya, 75 miles west of Mosul, Iraq. Rescuers dug through the wreckage of collapsed clay houses in northwest Iraq on Wednesday, uncovering at least 250 bodies.
Mohammed Ibrahim/ASSOCIATED PRESS
— Edited by Amelia Freidline
WORLD
Bombs ruin Bush's pretty picture of Iraq
BY KIM GAMEL ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD—Rescuers used bare hands and shovels Wednesday to claw through clay houses shattered by an onslaught of suicide bombings that killed at least 250 and possibly as many as 500 members of an ancient religious sect in the deadliest attack of the Iraq war.
The U.S. military blamed al-Qaida in Iraq, and an American commander called the assault an "act of ethnic cleansing."
The victims of Tuesday night's coordinated attack by four suicide bombers were Yazidis, a small Kurdish-speaking sect that has been targeted by Muslim extremists who consider its members to be blasphemers.
The blasts in two villages near the Syrian border crumbled buildings, trapping entire families beneath mud bricks and other wreckage. Entire neighborhoods were flattened.
"This is an act of ethnic cleansing, if you will, almost genocide," Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, said to CNN. He said that was evident from the fact Yazidis live in a remote part of Nineveh province that has been far from Iraq's conflict.
Mixon said last month that he proposed reducing American troop levels in Nineveh and predicted the province would shift to Iraqi government control as early as this month. It was unclear whether that projection would hold after Tuesday's staggering casualties.
Zayan Othman, health minister for Iraq's nearby autonomous Kurdish region, said 250 bodies had
Death estimates ranged widely.
been pulled from the rubble and some 350 people were injured.
But the death toll was put as high as 500 by some local officials, including Hashim al-Madani, a senior provincial security official; Kifah Mohammed, director of Sinjar hospital; and Iraqi army Capt. Mohammed Ahmed. They agreed with Othman that about 350 were wounded.
The carnage dealt a serious blow to the Bush administrations hopes of presenting a positive picture in a progress report on Iraq to be delivered by the top U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker in about four weeks.
Officials in northwestern Iraq pleaded for aid as many families were left homeless after their houses collapsed in the bombings near Siniar.
"The residents are appealing now to governmental and nongovernmental organizations to help
them with medicines, food, water and tents," Farhan said. "About 50 houses have completely collapsed over their families. Many of the victims have been badly dismembered. Rescuers are only finding pieces of dead bodies."
Hospitals across the region were overwhelmed and only emergency vehicles were exempt from a curfew that was in place across towns west of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Dakihl Qassim, the Sinjar mayor, said the four truck bombers approached two areas in the town of Qahataniya, 75 miles west of Mosul, from dirt roads and all exploded within minutes of each other. He said the casualty toll was expected to rise.
"We are still digging with our hands and shovels because we can't use cranes because many of the houses were built of clay." Qassim said.