Collegian Archives

When I sit down at a Morgan Library computer, the last thing I

want to see is the individual next to me checking out a pornography

site while I am attempting to research a paper.

But what I want matters just as little, or as much, as every

other student on campus. In fact, because CSU is a land-grant

institution (a public school), anyone, not just students, staff and

faculty, is allowed use of the computer and Internet. With this

open access, anything may be viewed.

When I searched the Morgan Library Web site, I found the

library’s reply to a complaint about viewing pornography on the

computers.

According to this response, the library follows the policy of

suggesting those uncomfortable with others’ Internet use to move to

another workstation. According to the Library’s “Policy for

Computer and Internet Use,” which can be found at

http://lib.colostate.edu/reference/policy.html: “The Colorado State

University Libraries provides free, equal and unrestricted access

to the Internet to support the scholarly, education and information

needs of the University’s diverse community of library users …

While the Internet presents material that is personally, culturally

and professionally enriching for all ages, it also provides access

to some material that may be offensive, disturbing, inaccurate or

even illegal under United States or Colorado law. As with other

library materials, librarians and staff do not endorse any

viewpoints represented on the Internet … they are also not

responsible for censoring access or protecting individuals from

controversial or offensive material.”

This policy protects students, staff, faculty and community

members from censorship and the user-privacy intrusion. The policy

also helps CSU to retain intellectual freedom across the board and

allows for any type of information to be viewed.

If the library chooses to censor pornography viewing, what would

stop the librarians from censoring information on abortion or

sexually transmitted diseases or anything else deemed offensive? A

type of policy that begins any type of censorship starts a fall on

a slippery slope that could lead to complete censorship of all

controversial material.

In this description anything someone does not agree with could

be deemed “controversial material,” so where would the censorship

end?

Although there are illegal documents on the Internet, such as

child pornography, the library, as a public institution, should not

serve as the police by stopping these sorts of crimes. If I saw

someone looking at child pornography or someone underage, I would

report it immediately to campus police, not library staff. The

library staff should not serve as a censor even if the information

may be illegal.

To retain intellectual freedom on our campus, we must be

permitted to view anything we choose. If the individual next to you

is offending you, it is up to you to remove yourself from the

situation. It is not the librarian’s job to move the offending

individual.

To the proprietors of the Colorado Harmony Market, calling the

enterprise a grocery store is similar to saying a choice cut

rib-eye is “just a piece of meat.”

The market has unique elements, products and goals that separate

it from other “grocery stores.”

The market is actually four entities under one roof: Long Family

Farms, Fiona’s Delicatessen, Harmony Co-op and Harmony Farms

Foundation. Each store operates mutually but separately in the

building at 1001 E. Harmony Road.

The market’s goal is to provide a farmers’ market-like setting

that can be frequented by customers year-round.

The businesses within the market are separated not only by walls

but also by the products they exclusively produce. The commitment

to supporting local farmers, ranchers and other local

food-production businesses is the common bond the businesses

share.

Long Family Farms is owned by John Long and provides fresh meat

and seafood to the market. Long has been in the meat business for

48 years and raises pigs that provide the store with many of its

pork products. Long said the store operates on the protocol that no

meat will contain antibiotics, hormones or have consumed food or

water that has contaminants. Long’s, like the other stores in the

market, gets all of its meat from local ranchers.

“The meat is all raised on small family farms, not in

confinement,” Long said. “We preserve the identity of the

product.”

To preserve the identity of the product, Long attributes each

product in his store to its individual rancher. Long also said that

an average portion of ground beef purchased in a chain grocery

store could contain meat from up to 1,592 cows, where as in his

store, one portion of ground meat comes from one cow.

“(Long’s) is the best butcher shop I’ve seen in a long time,”

said Allen Stahla, Fort Collins resident and market shopper.

“(It’s) good grass-fed beef that tastes good.”

The Harmony Co-op provides the produce for the market. The co-op

also strives to get as many of its goods from local growers as

possible. Currently only tomatoes, cherries and lettuce are locally

grown, but Chuck Fox, the co-op general manager, estimates that

once the Colorado harvest season arrives in July, 80 to 90 percent

of its products will be locally grown.

“We have unique products because we favor local products,” Fox

said. “Plus they’re just better products.”

So far Fox has been pleased with the response from the local

community.

“I had no idea how people would respond to this. It just touches

something in their head and in their heart,” Fox said. “It means

much more to them when (customers) learn what we’re about.”

Some products the store provides that come from Fort Collins

include soaps, cheeses from Bingham Hill, Nita Crisps, salsas and

tortillas.

Fiona’s Delicatessen also operates in the market. Fiona’s bakery

and catering services in Old Town are now available to south Fort

Collins via the market.

While Long’s and the co-op provide local goods to consumers,

Fiona’s owner Elizabeth McBryde said Fiona’s is working to be a

producer of local products.

One of McBryde’s central motives for participating in the market

was an interest in supporting nonprofits through the market’s

community-oriented nature.

“So many of these nonprofits do a lot of their fundraising with

food and we want to be able to help them,” McBryde said. “We’re

really trying to bridge the gap between the customer and the

producer.”

Aside from the four stores, the market will also provide

community workshops, including gardening, culinary and wellness

instruction among other activities.

The market will be having its grand opening July 16 to 18.

Some changes are in store for two of CSU’s vice presidents.

After almost a year at CSU, President Larry Penley has decided

to restructure the university administration, and two of the five

current vice presidents will take on expanded roles starting

Thursday. The Board of Governors for the CSU System approved the

reorganization last week.

Tony Frank, vice president for Research and Information

Technology, will add to his duties the new senior vice president

position. This position will lead the university’s academic,

research and student affairs areas, according to a university news

release.

Linda Kuk, vice president for Student Affairs, will add the

duties of dean of admissions to her current role.

“My goal in all of this is to put together a comprehensive

recruitment plan that will tie into the goals (Penley has) outlined

in his inaugural address and that will tie into the

strategic-planning process,” Kuk said.

Penley and Frank were unable to be reached before the newspaper

went to press.

However, Penley wrote an e-mail to the university community

stating that with several key constitutional and financial

challenges facing the university, the restructuring will help

strengthen CSU’s management structure.

“The financial pressures faced by CSU mean that I must

accelerate my efforts to provide the consistent leadership, good

management and regular communication you need to be successful in

the environment that currently exists,” Penley wrote.

Frank, who has been a CSU vice president since August 2000, is

currently in charge of the university’s research funding. He is

also a former associate dean and department chair in the College of

Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

“Larry Penley has set an ambitious course for Colorado State in

the coming years, and I’m confident that working together, we can

reach our goals and even better meet the needs of the society we

exist to serve,” Frank said in the news release.

Kuk has been a CSU vice president since 2001 and is also a CSU

alumna.

She believes the added workload of the admissions dean position

will be “workable” because the people involved are all dedicated to

the effort.

“My motivation is really tied to really caring about this

place,” Kuk said.

One of her main goals for admissions is to evaluate and increase

recruiting efforts, she said.

“One of the goals that we have is to be a little more out there

in terms of recruiting efforts, especially out of state,” Kuk

said.

Kuk said the admissions-office structure will stay mostly the

same, but she will be taking some time to evaluate the office and

look at what it might need in terms of increased resources and

staffing.

Penley also made a change to the Office of Equal Opportunity, in

large part because of recent Supreme Court decisions, according to

his e-mail.

Dana Hiatt, the office’s director, will report directly to

Penley, as well as to John Lincoln, senior adviser to the president

who came to the university on April 1. Lincoln is in charge of

coordinating diversity and improving enrollment management at

CSU.

“This reorganization is designed to place Colorado State’s

academic core at the center of all we do, taking advantage of the

university’s research maturity, maintaining a focus on diversity

and centralizing our admissions activity in ways that further

strengthen our student body,” Penley said.

Silly Republicans, the choice is not yours.

Conservatives across America are rallying against the Friday

release of Michael Moore’s newest documentary, “Fahrenheit 9/11,”

claiming it is a dangerous piece of anti-Bush propaganda.

After Disney Corp.’s unsuccessful attempt to block the movie’s

release by refusing to distribute the picture, grassroots

conservative groups have begun organizing public boycotts of

“Fahrenheit 9/11” in addition to letter-writing campaigns to local

theaters urging them not to show the movie.

As a result, movie theaters are beginning to hire security

guards for next weekend and Moore’s movie has received a truly

priceless amount of publicity in the fortnight leading up to the

June 25 release date.

I would like to personally thank every single American feeling

compelled to shield me from the conglomerate of horrors and

heretics some refer to as liberal ideology. Surely I am not

intellectually or morally capable of deciphering fact from

fiction.

Criticism of Moore’s journalistic style abounds in the press,

and liberals as well as conservatives have accused the filmmaker of

giving his work extra political slant by editing people out of

context and not presenting an objective view of the topics he

examines. This is, admittedly, a deserved criticism. In the 2001

film, “Bowling for Columbine,” for example, Moore virtually

interrogated a frail Charlton Heston, even though he was suffering

from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

Conservative leaders and activists fear Moore will put this same

slant on the Bush administration. Out of an apparent moment of

doubt as to the ability of everybody else to separate fact from

fiction or out of personal surety, have decided it would be best if

nobody saw the film.

The “right” describes Moore’s anti-war/anti-Bush stance as

un-American because Moore is openly contesting both the war and the

government. He is seen as a rabble-rouser, and conservatives are

relentless in their accusation that the timing of this film’s

release is politically motivated.

Duh. Even Moore concedes this is true, and even goes as far as

to say he made this movie with the intention of influencing the

election. He says the film is aimed at the disillusioned masses and

is intended to stir them to action.

“It ignites a fire in people who had given up,” Moore said of

his film in the New York Times.

The June 20 Times review of “Fahrenheit 9/11” made note of

Moore’s checkered past, but the reviewer concluded nonetheless that

” the central assertions of fact in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ are supported

by public record.”

The first documentary to win top price at the Cannes film

festival since Jacques Cousteau’s “The Silent World” in 1956,

“Fahrenheit 9/11” chronicles the blunders of the Bush

administration from the 2000 election to the invasion of Iraq in

2003.

The film accuses the Bush administration of ignoring warnings of

an impending terrorist attack during the summer of 2001 and using

the attacks as a shallow justification for invading Iraq. He also

accuses Bush of being an incompetent head of state and calls into

question the President’s personal and financial commitments to many

prominent Saudi Arabians, including the bin Laden Family.

Republicans dismiss the connections and accusations made by

Moore as petty partisan propaganda, and use this label as rationale

explaining why the picture shouldn’t be released.

Since when has propaganda been illegal? Did President Bush not

land on an aircraft carrier on the taxpayer’s dime and declare an

end to “major” combat last May, only to have almost 1,000 Americans

die since? How about anti-drug commercials on TV, or even the

multi-colored “Terror Alert Level”?

In a free society, especially a capitalist one, propaganda

saturates everything. People are allowed to say and do what they

please. However, they can decide for themselves what they believe

and how they feel about a given situation.

It is when the flow of ideas becomes controlled and communicated

by a single, self-righteous group that the power of propaganda

begins to pose a serious threat to individual thought.

The question I would like to pose to the “right” is this: What

is more un-American – standing up for what you believe is right or

not giving your neighbors the opportunity to decide what is right

for themselves?

Until the “moral majority” stops telling me what movies I should

not see, I will refer to them by what I feel is a more fitting

title.

The un-Democrats.

Despite a week delay, CSU’s Summer Cafe Theatre is scheduled to

open and run a full season of three different productions.

Several setbacks prevented the technical crew from painting,

rigging lights and continuing construction. After 28 years in

production, this is the first time that the summer theatre has been

delayed for any reason.

“The delays that are happening right now are due to this

wonderful precipitation we’re having, ” said Alana Minor, director

of publicity for the Department of Music, Theatre and Dance.

The past few years have been difficult for the summer

theatre.

“We’re 28 years old this year, we almost lost the theatre last

year due to budget cuts. My staff with high school volunteers and

two college students managed to get over $10,000 in donations for a

silent auction and we sold everything and we saved summer theatre,”

Minor said.

2004 is also a year of transitions for the resurrected summer

theatre.

“Dr. Burns, who is one of the founders of summer theatre, is

retiring and he has handed off this venue to Dr. Eric Prince, a

British playwright and Becket scholar, someone where very lucky to

have here in our department,” Minor said

This year the theatre will feature three different plays;

“Little Shop of Horrors,” “A Triumph of Love” and “The Last Five

Years.”

“The Last Five Years” is a two person musical production that is

a self-directed performance by CSU graduate music students Britta

and Travis Risner. Britta Risner also produced the soundtrack.

“The Last Five Years” deals with the divorce of a couple that

have been together for five years. Members of the CSU theatre

community have compared the musical’s soundtrack to the Broadway

production “Rent.”

As the new opening date looms near, the technical staff said

they will be ready and are currently preparing for the technical

rehearsal.

“In a technical rehearsal we add all the technical elements to

the show, the actors (had) been rehearsing with just tape marks on

the floor,” said Jimmie Robinson, the technical director and

lighting designer for Summer Cafe Theatre, “A tech rehearsal is

with a full set, all the props, the sound is added, we’ll have all

the sequencing and cues of when the lights come up.”

Robinson has good things to say about the upcoming season.

“I’ve seen rehearsals for two shows and they’re very good,

“Little Shop of Horrors” is going to be a funny, outstanding show.

“A Triumph of Love” is a clever, funny show.”

The theatre will be holding its annual reception on campus on

July 19. The event is open to the CSU public.