THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 2007
NEWS
STUDENT PROJECT
3A
Filmmaker documents Phelps
BY BETHANY BUNCH
"Fall From Grace," an hour and 15-minute documentary surrounding Fred Phelps, was shown last night at Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union. The documentary was shown for the second time on campus by student filmmaker Ryan Jones, Wichita senior.
The film was selected to be screened early last month at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival in Austin, Texas. The annual event features the art and business of independent filmmaking by young cinematographers. Jones said he was one of the youngest filmmakers at the conference.
"For anyone to get into the festival is really a big deal," Jones said. "It was very well received."
"Fall From Grace" was such a success at the conference that Jones' brother, Garrett said, Morgan
Spurlock, director of "Super Size Me," expressed interest in Jones'
film. Garrett and his parents traveled with Jones to the conference.
"He was handing out filers for the film and handed one to Morgan Spurlock," Garrett said. "He said he wanted to see his film."
Ninety-eight percent of the church's members are in the Phils family
"I wasn't really that surprised by anything I saw. It's just an interesting group of people that can't be understood."
RYAN JONES
Wichita senior, filmmaker
The documentary was enjoyed among the emotionally charged audience last night, too. Applause broke out twice during the movie, both times in response to the silencing of the Phelps' family message: God hates fags.
Phelps is the minister of his 75-member church in Topeka.
Members picket thousands of events worldwide, including several KU events.
Jones spent several weeks with the Phelps family and at Fred Phelps' church, West boro Baptist Church,
in Topeka. He said the most difficult part of taping was obtaining access to interview Fred.
"I see them as very flawed individuals," Jones said. "But I can't shake how nice they were to me."
Adrienne Rainger, Quinter senior, said she attended the screening of the film after having some classroom knowledge of the Phelps
family.
"I wasn't really that surprised by anything I saw," Rainger said. "It's an interesting group of people that can't be understood."
Jones showed the Westboro Baptist Church members the completed film before its debut at the University last month. He said the congregation was pleased with the outcome, even though they disagreed with the opposing positions the movie presented.
"It didn't surprise me that the family liked it because they told me beforehand that even if there is only one of their signs seen in the film then it would be a success," Jones said.
Kansan staff writer Bethany Bunch can be contacted at bbunch@kansan.com.
— Edited by Katie Sullivan
》 JOURNALISM
Seattle newspapers settle four-year dispute
BY GENE JOHNSON ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEATTLE — Seattle's two daily newspapers have agreed to settle a legal dispute that threatened to close the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, erasing a cloud that has hung over the city's journalism industry for the past four years.
The Seattle Times Co. and Hearst Corp., which publishes the P.I. announced the settlement in separate statements. The two had been headed for binding, closed-door arbitration to settle disagreements with their joint operating agreement, which The Times contended was no longer financially viable.
"It's a new beginning for the P-I," said Hearst spokesman Paul Luthringer.
Under the agreement, which took effect in 1983 to save the P-I, The Times handles printing, circulation and advertising for both papers, and keeps 60 percent of their joint profits.
Hearst will pay The Times $25 million in exchange for not seeking to end the agreement before 2016. The Times, meanwhile, will pay Hearst $49 million to settle the litigation and buy Hearst's right to collect 32 percent of The Times' profits through 2083 if the P-I closes _ "Now no one can argue that Hearst might have a financial interest in seeing the P-I fold," Luthringer said.
Even though the settlement requires The Times to pay a net $24 million to maintain an arrangement that its officials have long criti-
cited, Times Chief Executive and Publisher Frank Blethen called the deal "very good news for us"
"It gives us a longer period of time to see if we can make this model work." Blethen told a news conference. "The huge $64 question for all of us is, are newspapers going to survive? ... I'm still very skeptical that it will work."
Gene Balk, a Times news researcher and the newspaper's unit chairman for the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, said staffers were struggling to understand what effect the deal would have on The Times.
"We've been operating under this assumption that we can't really survive under the JOA," he said. "Now, we are going to be operating under the JOA still, so it does raise a lot of questions."
Blethen noted that the deal would allow The Times to stop spending millions of dollars a year on litigation, focus on adapting to an Internet-driven world, and avoid the uncertainty of binding arbitration. Blethen and Times President and Chief Operating Officer Carolyn Kelly said no decisions had been made about when the company would pay Hearst, where exactly the money would come from or whether the deal would require lay-offs at The Times.
Reporters and editors at the P-I, some of whom had taken side jobs as professors or bartenders in case the paper closed, burst into applause when Publisher Roger Oglesby walked into the newsroom Monday morning with several lawyers who worked on the settlement.
STUDENT SENATE
Parties drop complaints of election violations
BYASHLEE KIELER
After an election week riddled with violation complaints against the Delta Force and United Students coalitions, the parties seem to have made peace. Each coalition withdrew its complaints against each other Monday night at the Election Commission meeting.
Delta Force filed a violation complaint last week citing that the United Students coalition defamed Delta Force presidential nominee John Cross, Kansas City, Mo., junior, saying he had authored and passed only one bill while in Senate. The complaint said Cross authored three bills.
United Students members told potential voters that Hannah Love, Dodge City junior and presidential candidate for United Students, and running mate Ray Wittlinger, Olathe junior, authored and passed a combined 29 bills. The complaint said Love and Wittlinger actually passed a combined 17 bills.
Delta Force dropped the complaint in order to move on.
"We realized it was a misunderstanding and rather than drag out the complaint we've decided to look ahead to the future" said Jack Connor, Overland Park junior and the complaint filer.
United Students withdrew its violation complaint against Delta Force for the improper use of mass e-mails to potential voters.
Had the complaint been heard and United Students been found guilty of using malicious intent in the statements, the coalition could have been disqualified and Love and Wittlinger could have been removed from their new positions.
HEALTH
"We feel that with the conclusion of the election it's time for the coalitions to come together for students," Wittlinger said.
Kansan staff writer Ashlee Kieler can be contacted at akieler@kansan.com.
The complaint cited Delta Force for using a mass e-mail to remind friends to vote. Wittlinger said that it wasn't right to get off on the wrong foot after elections.
Doctors drill holes in patients' skulls for therapy
WASHINGTON — The first dozen Parkinson's patients to have holes drilled in their skulls for a novel gene therapy attempt werent harmed and hints at some improvement have researchers embarking on a larger study to see if the treatment really may work. Doctors reported initial results of the closely watched experiment at a neurology meeting Monday, but cautioned that it's far too soon to raise hopes. At issue: Using a nerve growth factor to try to rescue dying brain cells.
Some 1.5 million Americans have Parkinson's, a disease that
Edited by Joe Caponio
gradually destroys brain cells that produce dopamine, a chemical crucial for the cellular signaling that controls muscle movement. Too little dopamine causes increasingly severe tremors and periodically stiff or frozen limbs.
Standard treatments can control tremors for a while but can't stop the disease's inevitable march. So scientists are hunting ways to protect remaining dopamine-producing neurons, and rescue dying ones. Previous attempts with growth factors haven't panned out. The new approach uses gene therapy — injecting a virus that carries a gene that in turn produces the growth factor neururin — to try to get the protein right where it's needed.
THIS WEEK ON CAMPUS
Associated Press
on campus?
want to get involved
The Board of Class Officers is looking for class representatives for next year.
Get information Wednesday April 18th in the Governor's Room of the Kansas Union at 5:00 p.m.
All KU students are welcome! For more information email Ryan Northup at kuryan85@ku.edu or Murtaza Khan at thekhan@ku.edu
April 17th,2007
KU Chapter CARWASH Saturday, April 21st from Noon-4pm Wal-Mart Lawn & Garden Center 31st & Iowa
American Business Women's Association
APRIL
215t
Swing TIME
7:30pm I2:00
Swing PLACE
BALLROOM II
Swing ADDRESS
1117 Mass St.
Swing BAND
Jazzhaus Big Band
Swing WEBITE
http://groups.kia.edu
/~kubbe/
Swing PUSHER
I2:00
all those
Have your car "professionally" washed!
KU PEACEBUILDERS
A documentary about kids born into Calcutta's Red Light District
funded by:
SENATE
"Tax & Spend or Spend & Tax, and the Future of Stem Cells"
Join Gov. Holden and his guests
May Scheme, Missouri House
Budget Committee, and
Brad Ketcher, Carnahan Chief of Staff and stem cell campaign manager in Missouri.
The Dole Center of Politics Student Advisory Board
Presents
Woodruff Auditorium Free Admission; Eligible for GAP credit
Wednesday, April 18 7:00 p.m.
Born into Brothels
4:00-5:30 p.m. tonight at the Dole Institute of Politics, KU's West Campus Free Lemonade, Cookies, and Parking!
KU FOR UGANDA
Benefit Concert
9:00 p.m. Wednesday. Cover is $5
9:00 p.m. Wednesday, April 18 at the Granada Performances by: The Implants, Farewell to Ashlyn, Ten Hour Drive, Lucy's Revenge, and KU student, Brendan Reilly
Reproductive Religion Rights Pro-Choice Spirituality
The Odd Couple?
Reproductive Rights and Spirituality
A pro-choice interfaith forum
Listen to and participate in a dialogue between religious leaders about how faith shapes life and spirituality in terplay
Where: The Kansas Room in the Kansas Union, KU
When, Tuesday,
April 17 at
7pm
*Refermence will be served*
SYRF
Choice USA
Joe Posnanski
Kansas City Star Sports Columnist "Best Sports Columnist in America" by Associated Press Sports Editors
The Soul of Baseball Tuesday, April 17 7:30PM Kansas Union Pine Room
DOLE INSTITUTE STUDENT ADVISORY BOARD
PRESENTS:
Scott Morris, FEMA's Florida Director of Long-term Recovery, will have his last "Politics of Disaster" study group 4-5:30 pm
Wednesday, April 18 at the Dole Institute of Politics. He will be joined be Emergency Management Professionals Gary Middleton, Terri Smith and Micky Davis to discuss looming disasters. Don't miss the exciting finale to this great series! Free cookies and lemonade!
YOUR AD HERE
Attention Student Groups:
If your student organization is registered with the Student Involvement and Leadership Ceneter, you may get FREE ADVERTISING here in the Kansan through Student Senate! Email hurly@ku.edu for mor information!