4The Daily Tar HeelTuesday, October 23, 1990
SQDDOG FWM
Study group to culture
By MARY MOORE PAR HAM
... Stan Writer
Culture involves a lot more than
Renaissance art or classical music.
; "It's about things as common as Elvis,
Sinatra and Madonna and things as
obscure as campaign buttons and drink
recipes," said Bob Boster, co-founder
of the Pop Culture Study Group. "Pop
culture is the study of those common
experiences not necessarily embraced
by the media but part of modern society."
It was after a class in media criticism
last year that Bob Boster got together
with Carrie McLaren and Brian Nestor
io begin what is now the Pop Culture
Study Group.
C; Because there is no formal depart
ment in mass media, classes focusing
on pop culture were scattered through
Committee forests awareness program
: ; By M.C. DAGENHART
' Stan Writer
! In recognition of World Rainforest
Week, the Rainforest Action Group
(RAG), a subcommittee of the Student
Environmental Action Coalition is
Sponsoring a number of programs on
campus to bring attention to the issue.
"Our purpose is to raise awareness
bp campus and in the community about
forestry issues, to let them know that the
rainforests are there and that trees are
being cut down at an alarming rate,"
said 'RAG co-chairwoman Lindsay
Lowry.
"The trees can't save themselves and
we can't live without them," Lowry
said. "We want to inform people, get
them involved and have fun while we
do it."
To kick off World Rainforest Week,
RAG sponsored a benefit concert fea
turing Idolon, The Gathering, Stream of
Consciousness and The King's Bluff at
Cat's Cradle last night, Lowry said. The
money raised will be donated to the
reforestation program in Costa Rica
Military wife's
By ERIC BOLASH
Staff Writer
Wendy French can't watch
MASH.
""She can't watch China Beach, Tour
of Duty or Platoon.
The 26-year-old isn't blind, and she
doesn't harbor some hatred of military
shows. That's not it.
- When she watches these shows, she
puts her husband into the picture, living
the fear of a war like the characters on
the screen. Her husband, Marine Corps
Capt. David French, is stationed on the
USS Guam a helicopter transport
ship floating somewhere in the Persian
Gulf.
' 'When Iraq first invaded Kuwait on
August 2, Wendy said goodbye to her
husband every morning for two weeks.
Slie'didn't wish him a good day at work,
she had to say 'goodbye in case he
didri't return that night.
Every morning, David would pack
the dab of his pickup with his duffle
bergs-crammed full of the clothes and
tools- for war; today might be the day.
Daring that time, she said watched the
news morning, noon and night to see if
her husband would be called to duty.
On August 20 her husband didn't
Come home.
Z .For a while she would not watch the
Oews. She simply did not want to know
Svhat was going on. She watches the
Oews" now, but it doesn't ease her wor
fles. Z "It's just real scary. You can't talk to
him on the phone...I always worry when
he flies (on regular assignments), but
this kind of thing never crossed my
niind."
'I David French is a Forward Air
Controller. His troops are part of an
amphibious assault that would storm
tfie beaches and establish beach heads
in the first wave of an attack. He would
move into enemy territory and direct an
air strike according to what he saw from
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out departments and usually discovered
by word of mouth. The three channeled
their interest into a student organization
to help promote these classes and address
the spread of critical theory beyond
literature and film.
"We all know what Aristotle was
talking about," Boster said. "What we
don't know are the effects of kids
watching as much television as their
parents work in a day, and that's scary."
One year later, the Pop Culture Study
Group has grown to include over 30
students, faculty and members outside
the University who meet about every
three weeks to discuss topics ranging
from censorship of 2 Live Crew to
cultural bigotry in the United States.
No funding comes from the Univer
sity, but the group has raised enough
known as Arbofilia.
Tonight, Rolando Mendez, a wildlife
biologist for the United States Forestry
Service, will speak on "Old Growth
Issues in the Pacific Northwest." The
presentation begins at 7:30 in 104
Howell Hall. There will also be a dinner
discussion with Mendez at 6 p.m. at the
Campus Y, Lowry said.
RAG will also be selling Ben &
Jerry's Rainforest Crunch in the Pit
today from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Lowry
said. The ice cream, donated by Ben &
Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream of Chapel
Hill, will be sold in reusable plastic
mugs for $1.50. Those who bring their
own reusable mug may buy the ice
cream for fifty cents. Proceeds will go
towards funding future RAG programs,
Lowry said.
Throughout the week RAG will
sponsor a letter-writing campaign in the
Pit to protest the logging efforts of the
Mitsubishi Corporation in Malaysia,
said SEAC member Mark Chilton. RAG
has also called for a boycott of all
Mitsubishi products, from cars and ste
postage costs worth knowing
a mobile telephone on the ground.
Normally he flies C-130 transport
planes for the Marine Corps. Two years
ago, he took the job as a Forward Air
Controller to get away from his flight
squadron for a while and do something
different. But two weeks before he fin
ished the job, he was called. He would
rather be flying planes, the job he trained
so long to perform, but the Marine Corps
uses pilots for the position he is in.
Before the crisis began, David was
assigned to move to Chicago, 111., in
September. He and Wendy had already
called the realtors and made arrange
ments to move, but that all had to be
postponed.
Now all Wendy can do is wait.
What does help is having some idea
of specifically where her husband is and
communicating with him somehow, she
says. Although she can't talk to her
husband on the phone, Wendy has
rummaged around for every means of
communication possible.
She sent her husband a small tape
recorder through the mail about six
weeks ago. For almost two months she
had not heard his voice. Finally, on
October 6, her husband's tape came in
the mail.
"That tape player made all the dif
ference in the world."
He had taken the recorder around the
ship with him all day long. He carried it
with him on morning drills so she could
be with him and hear the troops chant.
He took it with him to the mess hall so
she could eat with him and his men. He
gave her a spoken tour of the ship so she
could picture him lifting weights in the
weight room.reading in the ship's library
and running on the deck of the ship.
And there are alternative methods of
communication. Every other day she
calls a hot line in Norfolk, Va., or at
Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville to find
out the approximate location of her
husband's boat.
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Directions;
From NC 54 ByPass
take Jones Ferry Rd. to
Old Greensboro Rd.
12.5 miles to NC 87.
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Turn right on NC 87
(north) for 9 miles to
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942-0783
students through media criticism TV show
money through its members to sponsor
the New York-based media criticism
show, Paper Tiger, on Carolina Cable.
Scheduled to air on Thursdays at 8:30
p.m., the non-profit show investigates
the corporate structures of the media in
an attempt to clear up the mysteries of
the information industry.
Each episode of Paper Tiger typically
focuses on one agent of the media. The
first show, airing this Thursday, critiques
the coverage of the Middle Eastern
conflict by the nightly news. Others
include a reading of The New York
Times by professor Herbert Schiller to
look at what is under the text as opposed
to what is actually printed on the page.
"If you don't understand what you're
watching, you're probably going to be
taken advantage of by the media," B oster
reos to Nikon cameras.
"The Mitsubishi Corporation owns a
logging operation that runs 24 hours a
day," Chilton said. "It is also displacing
indigenous people and basically forcing
them to work for slave wages or thro wing
them into jail. Our goal is to get
Mitsubishi to change their practices,"
he said.
"It is a massive violation of human
rights," Lowry said.
Thursday night, RAG is showing a
PBS documentary on South American
rain forests in the Union, Lowry said.
RAG will also be' presenting in the
Union the animated film version of "The
Lorax" by Dr. Seuss at 7 p.m. on Friday,
Lowry said. The room numbers for both
shows will be posted at the Union desk.
The Lorax is especially relevant to
World Rainforest Week, Chilton said.
"It's a fable about what happens when
an area becomes deforested," he said.
"It's an allegory of worldwide defor
estation and what our world's future
might be. It's a terrific movie. Don't
miss it!"
She can call radio announcers who
voluntarily take messages of 25 words
or less over the phone and then send
them in the mail to and from the soldiers
She can send a free fax message from
any AT&T store.
And she keeps in close contact with
the soldiers' wives around her. She says
the wife of her husband's commanding
officer probably has more news about
the troops than the commanding officer
himself. They all try to stay close and
keep each other informed of any news
of where their husbands might be and
what they might be doing.
Help also comes from other sources.
At Camp Lejeune and at Cherry Point
where Wendy is stationed, the town
service stations are providing free
towing for the broken down cars of
soldiers' wives, and they are changing
the oil in their cars for free if the wives
bring in the new oil and oil filter.
Throughout the day when she looks
at her watch, Wendy calculates in her
head what time it is in the Persian Gulf.
She checks the mail first thing when she
comes home from her job at the Cherry
Point Marine Base in Newport. Her
husband has been gone for about two
months, and for about the first three
weeks she received no mail; she heard
nothing of him.
One day a few weeks ago she got
three letters, and now that his location is
somewhat permanent, the mail has come
steadily. She said her husband writes to
her every day or every other day.
"You can spend a fortune on postage,"
she says. She herself has spent $15 a
shot mailing packages.
She sends him cookies, letters with
little bits of news, video tapes of tele
vision shows that might interest him
and his roommates, and she sends his
issues of Runner's World and U.S. News
& World Report.
After reading her husband's letters.
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Tickets on sale in the Pit Oct. 22-25 and at the door.
said. "Most of us don't analyze what we
see when we're watching TV, we just
see it."
Underscoring this lack of analysis is
the concept of nightly news. Boster said
TV news was not set up to inform
viewers but to make them watch the
commercials.
"The viewer is a commodity, and
newscasters are paid to deliver them
advertising," he said. "If they tell you
something that will make you want to
tum off the TV, they you won't be
watching the ad. This whole concept
really colors what the viewer is and is
not told."
In addition to sponsoring Paper Tiger,
the Pop Culture Study Group is writing
a paper to the North Carolina Civil
Liberties Union in Durham addressing
Joint conceits
By ANGELA BUFFUM
Staff Writer
Members of the UNC Orchestra
will set aside traditional school com
petitiveness to join the Duke Sym
phony Orchestra for an exclusive
concert featuring a combination of
the two orchestras in Memorial Hall
on Tuesday, Oct. 23, at 8 p.m.
The groups will perform together
again on Wednesday, Oct. 24, at 8
p.m. in Page Auditorium at Duke
: University. Both concerts are free of
admission.
Students will participate in the
performances together without the
usual fierce school rivalry. Daniel
Cherry, a juniorpolitical science major
at UNC, credits this to the nature of
the event.
"Music is a good way to transcend
any school's rivalries and to bring
people together' he said. "Music is a
common bond."
The concert is all about playing
music and having a good time. In the
words of violinist Kathy Mlinar, a
husband may return safely from Persian Gulf
she sits down to watch the news. Presi
dent Bush's comments that the stale
mate can not continue forever don't
comfort her.
She tries to be optimistic, but what
would she do if there was an invasion?
She says she would probably turn off
the television, call her mom and cry.
After the news, she contacts other
Gallery questions NEA exhibit
From Associated Press reports
BOSTON The head of a museum
that displayed photographs by Robert
Mapplethorpe says politics is the reason
why the head of the National Endow
ment for the Arts rejected a grant for
another exhibit there.
"A week ago I would have said no,
but now I would say that maybe there is
an informal blacklist," said David Ross,
director of the Institute of Contemporary
Art.
The institute drew protests this
summer with the Mapplethorpe show.
In Cincinnati, a gallery and its director
were acquitted of obscenity charges after
showing the same photos.
NEA chairman John Frohnmayer told
Ross he was rejecting a $40,000 grant to
fund an exhibit by Los Angeles mixed
media artist Mike Kelley. The grant had
been approved by an NEA selection
Airport
decision)," town council member Art
Werner said. "Basically we've been
interested in reducing traffic and lower
ing the usage of the airport."
Some citizens also oppose night use
of the runways and have suggested vari
ous ways to reduce night traffic. But in
the letter, Antle wrote that the best al
ternative would be to place a "stronger
statement ... in the general airport di-
the Big Band Era
fRgiurn to the iXegance
ReCive the, 'Tradition
of the
W&fattCjermans (Dance
Jriday, Octo6er26, 1990
(WooCCen Qytn
9:00 p.m, - 1:00 a.m.
Featuring the music of The
Casablanca Orchestra. Sponsored
by the UNC General Alumni
Association in conjunction with
the Order of the Bell Tower and
the Class of '91.
the banning of 2 Live Crew. Although
the ban was reversed in Chapel Hill, no
work has yet been done to reverse the
decision in Durham.
The group has established a paper
file in the North Carolina Collection of
Wilson Library. Both graduate- and
undergraduate-level papers written on
pop-culture issues are on file for read
ing, research and bibliographical use.
At present, the only degree in pop
culture studies is given at Bowling Green
University in Ohio. However, the group
hopes to build enough support for the
eventual insertion of a pop-culture major
here much in the way the folklore de
partment was formed.
"The study of popular culture fits
into almost any discipline you can
imagine," co-founder McLaren said.
bond UNC, Duke orchestras
graduate student at UNC in musical
performance, "students (from both
schools) have all been having a really
good time, and I think this will be
conveyed to the audience."
The combined orchestra boasts an
impressive 100 members and provides ;
an opportunity to hear music that re
quires a larger orchestra. Tonu Kalam,
orchestra conductorat UNC, said, "They
are playing music that neither orchestra
would be able to do separately."
The program consists of four Italian
pieces. The opening piece is Verdi's
"Overture to Nabucco." Written early
in the composer's career, the combina- i
tion of slow melodic sections and fast
lively sections makes it a great opening
piece, Kalam said.
Following is the "Turandot" Suite
Op. 41 by Busoni, a large symphonic
piece that highlights the strong string
section produced by the mutual efforts
of the two schools. The two orchestras
will also play "Overture to Idomeneo"
by Mozart and "Pines of Rome" by
Respighi.
wives to exchange any new gossip about
their husbands and then she goes to
work on her stained glass. When her
husband left, she signed up for a stained
glass class on the base. The craft work
challenges her and she enjoys it, but it is
really something to keep her from con
stantly worrying about her husband.
Before she goes to bed, she sits down
panel.
"It is almost unprecedented in the
history of the NEA that an application
for a gallery is approved by a peer
review panel and then gets rejected by
the director," said Arthur Cohen, the
institute's marketing director.
An NEA spokeswoman denied that.
"It's not unusual for grants to be rejected
at any level because of last-minute in
formation or whatever," said spokes
woman Virginia Falck.
Falck said NEA policy prevented the
organization from saying why it rejected
the grant, out of consideration of the
artist's privacy.
"We get 18,000 applications a year,
and we have money for only about
4,000," she said.
Ross, however, cried foul. "I see this
action as an insult to the peer review
system and to the artist as well as in-
rectories, limiting normal airport use in
the period of 12 midnight to 6 a.m."
But Bloom said the citizens group
would continue to push to discourage
use of the runways starting at 9 p.m.
instead of midnight.
Citizen groups have suggested that
turning off the runway lights would
discourage night use of the airport. But
Antle wrote that, because of the electri
cal system, if the runway lights are
turned off, then all the lights must be
extinguished. "Practically all airport
users ... recommend against this prac
tice," he wrote.
The University will continue to limit
the use of the airport as usual. No jet
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"It's the study of history, but now,
mainstream and often culturally irrel
evant." Other members of the group agreed
that the lines between the departments
and even the traditional uses for critical
theory were beginning to blur.
"I remember taking an art history
class and realizing that I probably had
more in common with media theory
classes offered in RTVMP than with the
painters down the hall," Boster said. "
fcoth Boster and McLaren stressed
the need for pop culture to be addressed
whether or not a major was obtained.
"We all see movies or TV shows and
talk about them," Boster said. "The
study of pop culture is not up in an ivory
tower but may be a literal survival skill
in this age."
Kalam and Lorenzo Muti, the
conductor at Duke, had the idea of
combining the orchestras. The two
became friends while studying at
Curtis Institute of Music. When they
both came to North Carolina, they
thought it would be a good idea to
combine the two groups.
Muti studied conducting at the
Conservatory of St. Cecilia in Rome
before coming to the United States in
1967 to study at Curtis and the
Juilliard. He has worked in England
and Holland, and with most of the
symphonies in Italy. Muti has been
conducting at Duke since 1983.
Kalam studied conducting, piano
and composing at Harvard, Curtis and
the University of California at Ber
keley. He has conducted orchestras at
various universities, as well as the
Nevada Opera Company and the Lake
George Opera Festival. Presently, in
addition to his position of associate
professor at UNC, he is also the music
director of the Longview Symphony
Orchestra in Texas.
to write a letter to her husband. She:
writes to him every day, telling him at
least a little something about her day. :
In a letter to his father, David wrote;
"Now that we are here, we will probably;
just stay on the ship unless something;
big happens with Iraq...I'll be happy to;
be home - hope it's soon."
Wendy hopes so too.
grant rejection
tegrity of the Institute," he said. "I am;
both saddened and angered by it." ;
"We will do the show no matter
what," Ross said. ;
Traditionally, NEA grants are rec-;
ommended by a peer panel and referred;
to the National Council on the Arts, the;
agency's 26-member advisory board,;
but the chairman has the authority to;
approve or deny grants on his own. ;
Ross said he was told the council did
review the application, but did not know ;
how it ruled. He said he knew the peer;
panel was not asked to review the ap-;
plication again, as is customary. ;
Last week, a House compromise that
would have allowed the NEA to award
grants without content restrictions was;
derailed by the Senate Appropriations'
Committee, which reinstituted an anti-
obscenity pledge that artists must sign
before they receive grant money.
from page 1 :
airplanes, gliders, balloons or ultra 1 ights
are allowed to land or take off from ;
Horace Williams. Also, the airport does
not provide any services after dark, and
no practice landings or takeof fs are per- -mined.
Antle also promised in the letter that
"no action will be initiated that would
lead to greater use of the facility."
In the letter, Antle reported the use of ;
the airport this year has declined since
fiscal year 1989. In fiscal year 1990,
gasoline sales were down 15,570 gal
lons and transient landings were down
by 958. Preliminary statistics for 1991
show the numbers will be virtually un
changed this year from 1990.
ALLIED
HEALTH
PROFESSIONALS
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