Newspaper Page Text
2
THE WEST GEORGIAN, WEDNESDAY MAY 20, 1981
Opinion
Dr. Karsten
Somethin* happened behind dosed doors that resulted in the resignation of Dr
Sigfned Karsten. forner chairman of the Economics Department, and we suspect
that he was the victiu of something less than fair play Nobody is talking Mum is
the word His fellow faculty members don't want to be quoted The dean of the
business school doesn’t want to express his feelings The president of the college,
"won’t go into his personal case ’’ Even Karsten is afraid to speak out However,
some sources close to the situation, who won’t go on the record, have made innuen
dos that we can't prove yet
Dr Karsten was appointed to his position from the "outside” three years ago
and was never welcomed from the start The faculty choice for the position was Dr
Richard Guynn, still teaching here However, Karsten was appointed by the presi
dent Bitterness and backbiting began immediately and controversy seems to have
surrounded the entire span of his chairmanship The Economics Department has
experienced a 25 percent turnover rate among its professors in the past couple of
years
In an emotional discussion with Karsten, he acknowledged that any ad
ministrator serves at the "pleasure of the president.” but he did not feel at liberty
to go into further detail "Since I no longer had the pleasure of the president I chose
to resign,” he said . .
Of course there is bound to be a certain amount of disagreement among faculty
from time to time -some more than others However, people of higher learning
should be able to arrange the settlement of their disputes in an above board man
ner and not by shooting dirty pool. It seems a three year "battle of the wills raged
within the Economics Department and although there is no apparent victor, some
folks appear to be smuggly happy with the outcome The search is on for anew
chairman of the department, but the question is if another candidate is selected
from the outside, will he be able to survive the Mickey Mouse politics’
The Chieftain
The lame horse of the college yearbook, the Chieftain, was humanely “put out of
its misery ” last week It is a sad but necessary end
Sad because it reflects a change in values of students It shows decreased in
terest, indeed a pitiful laziness, on the entire student body to produce something
that could, with the right input, have been of great meaning to all students The
"me” decade has obviously all but eradicated students' a sense of belonging to
"goodol West Georgia ”
Sad because there will be no pictorial record of each year in the life of this col
lege If you didn't get a few snapshots while you were home, many fond memories
that could be captured in a student run yearbook will be lost.
It is also unfortunate that anew editor was elected with the fate of the Chieftain
already sealed and delivered just days later
The college has given the faltering horse a chance to make it. We hate to see a
good one go But reality has taken hold reality that just couldn’t be denied The
thing just wouldn't heal Humanely, sensibly, a dignified execution and bunal is
given
Out of it all exists the possibility of a greater good, however Ideally, the col
lege’s prudent plan of re-evaluating the level of interest and feasibility each year
will result in the undertaking of the "new improved” Chieftain in years to come
Maybe it will only be a year away. If it does come, there will have to be sufficient
student interest not only to complete the year-long project, but to revive it and
overcome its publishing problems in the first place.
A Chieftain down the road is not inconceivable It happened once with the resur
rection of a defunct football program, —a rebirth sure to make the efforts surroun
ding this program succeed overcoming the negative legacy of the past We hope it
happens in the future for the yearbook It’s up to the students Will it take 20 years?
Keep It Shut
Does the controversy over the welding shut of a Gunn Hall exit door concern the
safety of the dorm’s residents in case fire breaks out or is it simply a matter of in
convenience’ Probably the latter, and in this case, those complaining have only
themselves to blame
Fire experts, campus officials and even a state insurance representative have
checked out the situation and can find nothing in violation of fire safety laws In
fact, Gunn Hall has three times as many exits as the national fire protection agen
cy requires for a dormitory which houses 190 people.
Admittedly, it would be an inconvenience to have to walk upstairs from a ground
level room to leave the building for classes In case of a fire, those students af
fected by the welded door probably have the safest exit route their windows,
which are only about three feet off the ground. Wouldn’t you rather clear out of a
burning building via a ground level window than a possibly smoke-choked cor
ridor?
Campus officials did not just "up and decide” that they would have the door
welded shut They were forced to take that action after several rounds with van
dals armed with screw drivers, cement blocks and super-glue. The students can
only thank themselves for their inconvenience, after all, "you reap what you sow "
If they had left well enough alone, they could have used the door during the day to
leave the building at their will
Gunn Hall is designated as an academic dorm, and the students who live there
choose to be there Rules for that dorm are outlined in the residence hall contracts
the student must sign If they can’t abide by the rules, perhaps they should con
sider another dorm for the remainder of their time at West Georgia
THE
WEST GEORGIAN
KIMTOK-IN-ililEF Michael Byrd
MANAGING EDITOR Mark McC loud
NEWS EDITOR Debbie Godbee
VSSISTANT NEWS EDITOR Jrff st > •**
ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Jim Hammett
VSSISTANT ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Cooper Smith
ASSISTANT EE ATI RES EDITOR Jeff Ha > ,M *
COPY EDITOR Jwm> Szimanski
PHOTO EDITOR David Edwards
ART EDITOR Kuykendall
PHOTOGRAPHERS Tracy Tate. Dale Bennett
SPORTS EDITOR Brian Pietro
ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR W Lor * M
WRITERS Stan Hardegree, Ellen Wilson.
Kelley Krainev. Hal Partridge Alleu Adair. Eldred Hightower
ADVERTISING MANAGER J fnnin K >
IffHf GroCh
accountant
.. ......... Kim StancH
The West Georgian is published every Wednesday (hiring the regular achool
year Office hours are 1-4 p m every weekday afternoon
Unsigned editorials reflect the comemua of opinion of the Editorial Board of
TbeWest Georgian.
f
9n.
Byrd's-Eye View'—
By Michael Byrd, Editor
The top campus administration all
gave their opinions in the West
Georgian recently in a senes titled
"State of the College Interviews.” So
what about the students' viewpoint of
the state of the college?
I wrestled with the tough problem,
realizing that in the interest of fair,
complete, unbiased journalism, a
representative student viewpoint must
be found The student side of the story
must be told.
In an attempt to parallel the ad
ministration interviews, I decided that
the student must be in a position of ex
treme prestige, must have accurate
knowledge of all facets of West Georgia
college life, must be concerned, in
telligent, and have no conflicts of in
terest. There could be only one logical
choice me. So 1 prepared questions
for this intense, revealing interview of
myself I also bought a fresh cassette
tape so the words wouldn't be forever
lost
I swallowed hard, trying to hid my
nervousness as I asked the first ques
tion
"The Football team. How do you feel
about that?”
Well, as you know, I'm a great foot
ball fan. Kicking that speckled thing
around for an hour and a half with no
breaks, the contact involved, the
athletic skill and everything, it’s just
remarkable. The guys are really
i
NOTE: This feature is a com
bination effort of two of the
finest!?) minds we can find. No
we didn’t look hard. All personal
references should be considered
in the collective sense, since
these two journalists (i) are of
the same relative age, demented
background, mental incapacity
and fatal good looks. We warned
you.
You’re walking down the hall of your
dormitory and suddenly you’re Angus
Young, Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page
Have you finally snapped? Doing
without sent you over the threshold and
you’re totally gonzo° No stupid. You’re
playing air-guitar
Don’t vou listen to the radio’ You
know AIP. guitar Acting like you're
playing an instrument when all you've
got is air between your fingers No pick,
no guitar, no chords, no cords, no wah
wah, no fuzz box, no amps and no
groupies Just your own little rock ‘n’
roll grimace.
With all the persons Reagan, Pope
John Paul. places-Poland and Ireland,
and things-inflation, finals - to deal
with, here we have the ultimate in
regressive escapism. True, harmless in
itself, but I-<we)-’ve been doing it for
years Without advertisement. Usually
right before the lamp shades and war
stories on a good binge
For instance, the first person to
witness my air jamming was my
father I was in mid-air from just jump
ing off the coffee table and about to do
my Peter Townsend split when dear old
dad saw me.
It scared him
kWA
'With Style'—
By Jeff Styles
Have you ever given any thought to
what writing is really like?
Now I'm not talking about sitting at a
desk and vomiting up some information
in B.S. form for a history test. I mean, if
you couldn't convince an occasional
professor that there was an academic
spark buried somewhere within your
gray matter, then you most likely
wouldn't be here. What I’m talking
about is the kind of writing people must
do for a living reporters, authors, col
umnists, songwriters and such. The
kind of people that starve if they hit a
dry spell or are simply forgotten if they
don't regularly crank out quality
material. (Quality, I should mention, is
the most ambiguous term in the
English language and only the most
pompous and close-minded individual
will pretend to know its meaning. I hap
pen to know many such people )
Now writing is a task that is not for
State of the College
phenomenal athletes, and I think a foot
ball team would do wonders for West
Georgia College I’m all for it.
••What elements about West Georgia
really stand out?”
I’ve seen a lot of the culture of the
campus, and one thing that really
strikes me is the amazingly wide selec
tion of interesting drunks available for
our entertainment at West Georgia
Any kind you could possibly want, and
some you would never have thought of
There was one party where the drunks
were playing music with conventional
instruments when they just got bored
with it. So one of the drunks suggested
getting out the pots and pans and
beating the hell out of them. Once
they got started, they couldn’t be stop
ped. One of the drunks beat on the bot
tom of a double boiler so long that he
couldn’t remove his zodiac ring for a
week
And you’ve got the usual incorrigible
drunks, who get more resilient and ob
noxious as the evening wears on. Like
one time there was this drunk who
thought she was Richard Petty You
just don’t know entertainment till
you’ve watched a woman possessed
with finding her car keys wander
around in a darkened house looking for
them, bouncing about all the while like
an 8-year old who just finished his first
ride on a Tilt-a-Whirl
We’ve got a fine selection of singing
A Little Up Front and Impulsive Head'—
By Ed Lorenz and Jim Hammett
Plug Us Into Something
I felt kind of weird He promptly clos
ed the door and left
An old friend of mine who lifeguarded
with me for several years, Jim Profit,
used to air jam all the time While the
rest of us prayed for rain, mortals that
we were, Jim would Tfp-synch’ his
Fender to Eric Burdon’s "Spill the
Wine” and it worked like a charm
Rain city We were off duty.
Do you remember your first jam ses
sion? Yes, you and your friends were
big time now You had mastered 23 in
struments - in your head -and all your
friends were as talented as yourself
My first air band played “All Right
Now” by Free. 1 played keyboards It
was my first time I was good
I sounded like the record.
Many times in lounges, shall we say.
I’ve screamed ‘‘Plug me into
something” climbed onto a table and
played rhythm to "Never Been Any
Reason” by Head East. My power "E"
chord is awesome
Today though, we cater with contests
and advertisements to the mentality of
BIG TIME air jamming. The same type
of antic that Dick Clark has been get
ting Philadelphia teenagers to do on
American Bandstand for 20 years
Course Philly kids will do anything to
be discovered and get out of that city.
Nonetheless, as Ben Franklin noted,
an empty sack won’t stand upright Can
you really make it big time when your
total talent is at the whims of the wind’
’Cause you realty Know tnat you can t
play a lick.
Oh. you might approximate Jimmy
Page's hand movements, but turn him
off and what do you hear’
Right. Nothing. And nothing is not
sacred
To Write of Writing
the weak of spirit or the lax of mind. As
a matter of fact, the cream of the
literary crop (ex... Hemingway. Shelly,
Pulitzer and myself) must have an
almost superhuman ability to with
stand the pain, both mental and
physical, that goes with the job.
For example. Say you are a colum
nist such as Art Buchwald who tries to
provide humorous overtones to other
wise serious subjects. Now you've got
to understand, this is your bread and
butter. The whole nation sees your face
and name above a bunch of words every
week and they expected you to be FUN
NY Now how about that for pressure'’
What if you don't feel like being funny?
What if you feel like being mean and
nasty and you want to fuss, cuss and
generally defecate on the concept of
motherhood. The entire country would
reel with shock of disaUusionment.
But this is just one example.
drunks, a breed I call psychological
drunks who always end up discussing
existence and meaning at 4:30 in the
morning, some really bizarre "drama"
drunks, who don’t drink, a few unique
dancing drunks who hop about like
kangaroos and get mad when someone
turns on the music, and one I saw not
too long ago, a flying drunk He just
kept tossing his body into space, lan
ding in the yard, and getting back up
I wouldn't go to college anywhere
else
"How about the parking problem?”
A lot of people have really complain
ed that there isn’t enough parking on
campus I can’t understand why people
would be so naive. It must be freshman
that complain about it so much.
I mean, some people! This is college
There's no need to hop in the car, circle
McDonald's eight times, loosen up with
a couple beers, and start necking in the
car, for crying out loud How primitive!
This is the big time, people. There’s
dorm rooms, you know Give your car
keys to your roommate People are
even having sex up there in those
rooms, you know, on school property I
hope the administration knows that
And now they want to have certain
"zones” for parking Like first base,
etc. I guess the theory is to give 'em
high school stuff, and maybe they'll be
controllable And I suppose the campus
police will ride around and make sure
So what’s the problem if air jamming
is spontaneous, rock ‘n’ roll induced
and a psychological release’ Nothing at
all
But what if it's poised, contrived, and
a BFD
Well, here we arrive at the crux, or
crutch shall we say, of the matter
When one is reduced to playing pawn to
the masses, can check mate be far
away? Must we cater to whims and fan
cies rather than proper and honest
entertainment? Are we not beyond the
stage of sucking our thumb and make
believe? Any real song lyrics come to
mind’
"He was a lonely boy. no good at
sports He tried to run but his legs were
short He walked around inside his head
and spent a lot of time in bed He greas
ed his hair with vaseline and practiced
hard at looking mean He held a tight
elastic band, his mike was just an emp
ty hand ” “Mirror Star" Fabulous
Poodles
The song should be self-explanatory,
but for the air heads, we will attempt to
explain Try this - you’re a star to an au
dience of one You, doofy! Ever hear
one hand clapping’
Mom is certainly proud of her little
Johnny B Goode now. And no doubt dad
is ecstatic about the three-thou he laid
out for your sheepskin Maybe now you
can graduate to 12-string guitar
Actually, what we’re trying to say is
that given our naturally critical
natures, we immediately found in “air
ing" the opportunity to vaguely, with
little regard for the truth spell bind you
Then of course there’s the typical
story of a young novelist who bares his
life’s darkest secrets in order to pro
duce an excellent, soul rending piece of
literature. A work of genius that is pro
claimed worldwide as one of the great
new traditions in the world of modem
writing. And after the poor kid travels
around the talk show circuit for a while
and has spent days autographing copies
of his book at the local supermarkets,
he settles down to begin work on his
next project and WHAMO. A dull flash
of non-inspiration hits and he develops
what is commonly called “writer’s
block". This peculiar ailment can last
for years if the circumstances are right
and the once literary prodigy can be
transformed overnight into a has-been
whose only claim to fame is collecting
dust on the back of a discount rack.
Pretty depressing, huh.
As far as all that goes, what’s easy
the parkers are in the proper zones It's
a pretty unrealistic approach, actually
“What could be done to carry the col
lege over the top? To give it that in
tangible something that makes a good
school great?"
Simple Turn over control and alloca
tion of the Student Activities budget to
the West Georgian. Abolish CPB and
student government, since those things
would be better handled by the great
harbour of campus opinion, the college
newspaper If an organization wants
funding, they write letters to the editor.
And we let the campus decide by the
qualities of their responses The editor
would retain final judgement, of
course And entertainment, well, the
West Georgian staff always has the best
time of any group on campus With that
money the program board used to have,
just think of the wild times we could
have. Everyone knows that the big
name acts always try to score points
with the press We’ve made some really
good connections over the past years
Just think of what this concept could
do for campus relations Everyone will
be friends with the college paper!
Wouldn’t that be nice. We'd have all
the money, so everyone would want to
be on our ’good' list. A happy campus
Happy, Happy, Happy
I may even learn to talk in “P R."
Happy, happy, happy
with our own little, naive if you will,
ways in “airing".
Air journalism!
Jim. you first
Wow Knocks me out My turn.
Damn Ed, where’d you learn that?
A gal from the Post
Too, we’ve considered the horizoniess
possibilities of- air dating, air relation
ships, air meals, air clothes, air col
umns
The value of life lies not in your
length of days, but in the use made of
them There is always someone wan
ting to fake what they cannot do. and if
you'd rather not attempt to live real -
we wish you no luck.
Hey Ed. plug me into something!
Wait til the amp warms, Jim.
Gimmea”D’’!M!!.
about writing for a school paper? I
mean, we don’t get paid for writing
stories. And we get damn little prestige
out of the deal. Usually, the only com
ments you ever hear are critical and
vindictive When was the last time you
hugged a reporter?
Anyway, I guess what I’ve really
been trying to get at is that writing is a
trying experience at best. And for
beginners it can be pretty scary. So if
you see me walking around the campus
in the near future, take a few seconds
of your busy schedule and give me a lit
tle moral support. Maybe just a simple
compliment. Maybe some good advice.
Money would be acceptable. Or any old
priceless heirloom that may be clutter
ing up your house Because with this
column, I may have taken that first
fateful step down the dark road to a
career in journalism And God help me,
it’s a jungle out there