Column
Mother Goose
writ even safe
By Shelley MaGee
■ The Gamecock
U. of South Carolina
Remember mom sitting by your
bedside reading you “Mother
Goose* tales as you nodded off to
sleep?
Well, there are many 5-year-olds
out there right now who could be
losing sleep. And if they’re not,
their parents should be. It’s illegal
in some places to sell the very same
tales that ushered us into slumber
as children.
Why? For the moat part, the par
ties responsible are special-inter
est groups who find parts of these
stories offensive and have the polit
ical clout to empty library shelves
of them.
Bedtime favorites like “Mother
Goose," “The Wizard of Oz* and
“Little Red Riding Hood* are being
banned daily from public libraries
all across the United States.
A recent example: A church
group in a small place like Flagler
County, Fla., had “The Wizard of
Oz” pulled off a middle school’s
shelf on the grounds that it is
occultist (the witches in the book
supposedly teach young children
about the workings of Satan.)
Civen u you aren i mucn into
“Mother Goose," maybe you like
Stephen King. Well, all but one
book he's written has been banned
somewhere in the country at one
time or another.
And he’s not alone. Kurt
Vonnegut, J.D. Salinger and John
Steinbeck are all commonly banned
authors.
Oh, and if you’re planning a trip
to Florida this winter break, you
might want to make sure you bring
a modest bathing suit You could
spend more time in the slammer
than on the beach if you are caught
wearing a G-string bikini that
exposes your ‘anal cleft"
Now, you may have no desire to
wear a G-string. You may not care
about “Mother Goose." But no mat
ter what someone’s personal pref
erence may be, it is his inalienable
right to make that choice.
The real “Fahrenheit 451" —
Ray Bradbury’s account of a gov
ernment-dictated society in which
book burning and other mind-con
trolling measures are the norm —
is going around us everyday.
Coincidentally, that book was
censored, too.
Getting a head start
While some 19-year-olds are finishing high school, others
are graduating from college, like several students at the U.
of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana who are ahead of their time
Page 9
M . ~
AU.&A session with Erasure singer
The eccentric Andy Bell tells why Erasure has finally
become one of the hottest new wave crossover groups, as
well as what he thinks about the competition.
Page 10
A real character
Cartoonist fits in with figures in his strip
By David Frese
■ Kansas Slate Collegian
Kansas State U.
He looks quite a bit like the character .Jim in his strip
Or is it Joe?
“HI admit it, I gave them really blah names.’
admits cartoonist Bob Berry 'Now I've offended
everyone named Jim and Joe.’
a “grown-up." Berry, who’s awaiting the Kansas snowfall so
he can put his sleds to use, looks — and acts — a little like
a kid you’d expect to be reading comics.
And after spending most of his adult life in college — nine
years to be exact — it doesn't appear he’s going to grow up any
time soon, either.
“Making the Grade" has a simple premise. Like
Bob, Jim and Joe go to college. But Jim and Joe
live with a walking, talking, beer-dnnking 7-foot
Kodiak bear named Filbert.
Jim and Joe are char
acters in Bob’s comic
strip "Making the
Grade,' which appears
daily in the Kansas
State U. Collegian
Like Jim and Joe,
Bob, a senior art
major, has a
youthful sort of
exuberance
He’s funny His
eye* are aglow
with ideas, mak
ing one wonder
just what is going on
in his head.
Despite the fact
that he is a married
man, Berry is hardly
1
GARY LYTUftOB BERRY KANSAS STAU COlUGtAN KANSAS STATE U
uut wiijr iuc ucai .
“Merchandising,”
Berry said. “It’s all
merchandising.
Those Filbert the
Bear lunchboxes.
Snoopy’s not going to
hold that comer for
ever, he and
Garfield."
Berry, a Kansas
I City native, has
attended four col
' leges in his quest
for a somewhat
elusive under
. graduate degree
P “Well, I started
in pre-law,” Berry
See COMIC. Page 9
Backfire
‘Warning’ labels spur sales
By Jennifer Cole
■ The Ball Slate Daily News
Ball State U.
In the wake of some record companies voluntarily labeling
albums containing “explicit lyrics" with warning stickers,
managers of three record stores near Ball State U. say the
effort has had little impact.
And Enn Adams, manager of Karma Records, claims that,
if anything, the stickers help create hype for the albums.
Daniel Walter, manager of Musicland in the Muncie Mall,
agreed that the labels make the records more appealing and
do little to keep children from obtaining them.
“I'm not very impressed with labeling," he said "It makes
kids want to buy them more."
But the labels are intended to be a signal to parents, not the
kids; in theory, the labels help parents discriminate between
a clean and potentially distasteful record when making a pur
chase for their children.
Yet there are no widespread laws — at national or state lev
els — prohibiting the sale of albums found in most music stores
to minors. So kids who can get the money can buy albums
without parental consent.
And some do Adams said children of the parents who have
complained “may be under 18, but they are 16 or 17 — old
enough to know what they're doing.’
But Connie Higgins, manager of Discount Den. said she
hasn't run into problems with young children buying contro
versial records. “They may look at some of them, but they
aren’t buying," she added
Higgins said records selling this fall that have caused some
squabbles include Jane’s Addiction's latest LP. the cover of
which shows the lead singer with images of two nude females.
To combat the controversy, a “white version" of the album's
cover is carried by the store.