Thursday March 2,1988
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
Vol. 98, No. 109 (USPS 650-640)
KKK heated topic Issues aired at meeting
By Rebecca J. Cisek
Kansan staff writer
Students, faculty and administrators met yesterday to update each other on the forum scheduled for Monday that would bring members of the Ku Klux Klan to campus.
About 15 people attended the two-hour closed meeting yesterday in Strong Hall's Regents Room.
David Ambler, vice chancellor for student affairs, said the meeting was not called to make any decisions about Monday's forum. Wayne Webb, president of the Black Student Union, said the purpose of the meeting was to open the lines of communication.
Michael Foubert, Lawrence graduate student and president of Slightly Older Americans for Freedom, is organizing the forum titled "Freedom of Expression in the University Environment: Voices from the Right."
Class meets at airport to question KKK
By James Buckman
By James Buckman Kansan staff writer
A KU journalism class interviewed two members of the Missouri Knights yesterday morning in almost complete secrecy at Lawrence Municipal Airport.
Harry Jones, the instructor of the reporting class that conducted the interview, originally had intended his class to interview members of the white supremacist group, an affiliate of the Ku Klux Klan, in his classroom on the KU campus in February.
But controversy and pressure from members of the black community, partly because Jones invited the Klansmen to speak during Black History Month, caused Jones to find an alternate means of conducting the interview exercise.
Jones said his students were not told that they would conduct the interview yesterday.
"The class had a clue that it was going to be in March," he said. "I did it today because I wanted to get the damn thing with over." He said he told his class about the field trip.
yesterday when they class.
"They were told at 8:30 when they arrived in room 101 downstairs to get in their cars and go out to the airport," Jones said.
In a note given to his students before they left for the airport, Jones said the trip would be voluntary, with the expectation that the event would attract no attention and occur without incident. The note said that at the first sign of any incident or disturbance, such as a protest demonstration, the students would be free to leave and consider the class
canceled.
Jones said he had asked the Klansmen Tuesday night to do the interview. He said he had an agreement with the members that he would give them only short notice before the interview so that they could not arrange for demonstrations or controversy to call attention to their cause.
"I had them meet me at a restaurant near the turnip exit, and then I drove them in my own car to the meeting place," he said. "I had two kids in my class tail我 must to make sure they didn't have somebody tailing us. They didn't try to double-cross me."
He said that the secrecy surrounding the class exercise had successfully allowed for him to carry out his original objective: giving his students a chance to report on and
expose racism.
"It it went exactly as I had planned except that it quadrupled in the educational value because of all the brouhaha," he said. "It heightened their interest in the whole damn thing, and the more interested they are, the better they write.
"We learned what a bigot looks like, and what a narrow-minded bigot looks like. We stared bigry in the face for an hour."
Marianl Pollack, Wilmette, ill., som-
more, said the interview was a great experi-
ment.
"It was absolutely both fascinating and repulsive at the same time," she said. "I'm glad we did it.
Knights tell KU students about goals
See CLASS, p. 12, col. 1
By Meredith Ralph Special to the Kansan
Using bibical parallels and historical allusions to illustrate their philosophies,
reviews
Craig SanduKANSAN
New Sounds
surprisingly, this LP is getting lots of play on college radio stations — not that it means much in these days of low musical standards.
BY JOHN HENDERSON
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS, "They Might Be Giants" (Bar/None/Records)
They might be giants, but they're dwarfs when it comes to musical talent. Not
The lyrics are silly and don't make any kind of point. Great. If I wanted free form dada, I'd watch Sesame Street. The music is sub-Divo without the production. The B-32s did this kind of thing better, and that's not saying a whole lot for They Might Be Giants.
The group's first album, "The Godfathers," was a triumphant leap in cohesion and power compared to the early singles this band recorded under the name the Sid Presley Experience. Now, with a major label contract and a U.S. debut full of hype, the Godfathers seem set to take over the charts. There's just one thing holding them
THE GODFATHERS, "Birth, School, Work,
Death" (Epic Records)
back — the music is boring. Not bad, just boring. It's as if they were told to "mellow out" by the music executives at the big company and did so at the expense of their music.
If the Godfathers had come across as having a good time, it would have been enough to push this album into the "Cool!" category. The one song that works, "When Am I Coming Down," succeeds because it doesn't rely on the band's normal formula of medium-tempo, guitar-based songs with trite lyrics. In this song, sitar-like guitar sounds and acid-influenced lyrics work.
The album isn't a new release. It's a reissue of the band's first LP, which went out of print long ago in the United States. What makes "Boys Don't Cry" worth reviewing is the press release that accompanies it. According to the release, "The Cure's purpose has always been to create interesting music and sneak a little weirdness into the charts." I suppose that, in a sense, they have done just that. This is by far the best Cure album, which is odd, considering that they've had nearly a decade to improve upon their formula. Later albums, such as "The Top," "Faith" and "Pornography," don't remain true to their purpose. They seem to have forgotten the "interesting music" and the "weiriness." What happened?
THE CURE, "Boys Don't Cry" (Elektra/
Asylum Records).
"Boys Don't Cry" includes the song "Jumping Someone Else's Train," an ironic tale of distaste for fashion mongers, "Killing An Arab" is an interesting rework of the climactic scene from Albert Camus "The Stranger." This album is excellent, full of double-entends and clever arrangements, marred only by the knowledge of the corporate teddy bears these guys became. I don't know what happened.
eagle.
I that in Missouri, there were 1,000, but more than 250" the Klan.
that he had been a member or nine or 10 months. He said I because he was "looking for experimenting."
t been a member since 1981;
t he joined after witnessing
inst wites in Miami
lied the Klan an "upbeat,ization," and said that one of the Klan was to promote plea."
See FORUM, p. 12, col. 1
ate
ething should be done to get them e curriculum."
ue bill will be heard on the House probably within two weeks, isn said. The Speaker of the se decides when the bill will be d.
both Branson and Lowther said
e would be considerable debate
he floor.
When the speaker brings it up on calendar, there will certainly be a very stormy debate." Branson
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18
ammonators gathered yesterday g the four-lane street in front of station, set up barricades of ing tree and set fire to a mini-
tri-riot police chased the protest- into side streets and apartment dings. Chunks of concrete were down at police from at least of the apartment houses.
ng army lisloyals
ked by violence in a middle-class
bhcorhood near the bank dis-
sign. On Tuesday, security agents
royed an opposition radio station
the neighborhood apparently
behind the ideal for Noriega demonstrations.
lice fired tear-gas grenades and ped tear gas into the buildings i portable tanks, filling the entire hboroom with the acrid, stinging ss.
e officer in charge stood in the tie of the street and shouted to lents, "You'll come out like cockes!"
8 KANSAN MAGAZINE March 2, 1988
ne did, and reporters on the e saw no one injured.
spokesman for the Panama
al Commission said anonymous
phone callers warned Tuesday
yesterday that a bomb was
wked in commission headquarters.
speaksman Franklin Castrellon
the Associated Press the build-
evaused evacuated and searched both,
but no bombs were found.