9 minute read
Blizzard
Blizzard buries Bloomington
by Jane Wilson, Tiba Altoma
IU students awoke one morning to see a world of whirling snow outside their windows and wondered if this was the real thing — a blizzard.
Buried under a 14-inch blanket of snow, the Bloomington campus came to a standstill for the first time in 35 years. Classes were cancelled Jan. 26-27 in order to keep the streets clear for emergency traffic. "Unexpected cancellations like this are extremely disruptive to the campus calendar, and it is my feeling that we should have classes if at all possible," said IU Vice-President Robert O'Neil. "On the other hand, it's ridiculous to hold classes and jeopardize people's lives," he added.
Many students made the best of the extra vacation. While some took advantage of the free time to study, most students settled in for two days of card playing, TV watching and drinking. Some even risked "life and limb" to get to a liquor store rather than face the prospect of a dry weekend.
(RIGHT) Jody Blum (left) and Joanne Sullivan recover their cafeteria troy/sleds after sliding downhill outside the IMU. (BELOW) An IU student trudges through the snow-piled Wright Quad lawn on the way to class.
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(ABOVE) "Is that all there is?" asked shoppers, as heavy snow delayed many grocery stores from restocking their shelves. (LEFT) It wasn't the rain, sleet or dark of night that kept this mailman from getting out, but the huge drifts of snow that plagued Bloomington during the blizzard. (CENTER) The cold and snow brought this couple closer together as they waited for the bus on 17th Street after the Michigan State-I U basketball game.
Life experiences important factors in Fuller's growth
by Patty Ward
The brisk, well-dressed man perched on a table and looked down at his rapt audience. "I'm really a good, living experiment," said R. Buckminster Fuller, philosopher, scientist, author and futurist who proved that statement at the IU Auditorium on Feb. 1. He lectured on his personal experiences, scientific principles, the importance of the human mind and the dangers of overspecialization.
The extinction of some animals is the dangerous result of this overspecialization, Fuller said. "We are now in the condition of humanity being speechless by overspecialization," he said.
Fuller added that because of recent technological developments and the recycling of fossil fuels and metals, our nation has no valid reason for selfishness. "We now have the options to reorganize society," he commented. Fuller said that scientists should work to solve world problems concerning civilians instead of the military. "No scientist has ever been asked to work on the plumbing," he said.
Fuller compared the world to a ship where the portside is trying to sink the starboard side and conflicts occur. If the mind is allowed to dominate, humans will survive, he said. "We're here for our minds, not our muscles."
Protesters rally against racism
by Marianne Gleissner
Chants of "no money, no trade, no arms, no aids," cut the crisp winter air at a protest rally on Feb. 4. Over 125 people gathered at the Showalter Fountain for the rally and march against IU investments in South Africa.
Several black African students, dressed in native garb, joined the crowd marching around Dunn Meadow toward Bryan Hall. The protesters, carrying signs with slogans like "U$-$outh Africa, Partners in Racism," continued on their way to the Indiana Memorial Union parking lot.
The marchers stopped directly outside a room in the Union where the IU Board of Trustees was meeting. Later during the rally, representatives from the group gave the trustees a petition with 2,000 signatures calling for the divestment of IU's investments in South Africa.
Speakers at the rally reported that IU holds stock in corporations in the foreign country. Among these companies are General Motors, which pays black workers one-seventh the salary white workers receive, and IBM, which manufactures identification passes that black South Africans must carry.
Don Wilkes, Indiana University Student Association Minority Affairs director, called such IU investments "irony at the highest extent. On one hand, IU is actively recruiting African students and paying for the oppression of African people on the other hand."
Wilkes pointed out examples of exploitation in South Africa. He said that blacks comprise 80 percent of the total population, yet they inhabit only 15 percent of the land. Blacks have "no economic, political or social right," Wilkes added.
The protest rally accomplished some good for the black African cause. At the conclusion of its meeting, the Board of Trustees agreed to pursue the issue of divestment of IU holdings in South Africa.
(ABOVE) A group of protesters march in freezing weather to the Indiana Memorial Union to present a petition to the IU Board of Trustees. The petition demanded divestment of IU holdings in South Africa.
Shown Spence
Fire strikes Kirkwood businesses
by Peter Genua
It was Monday, Feb. 13, and the heart of Kirkwood Avenue was burning.
The first news of the fire was brought by two animated and excited patrons at Nick's English Hut as they climbed the stairs toward the attic: "Wow, that's incredible, the snorkel's out there — it just keeps burning like a matchbox. The waitress pumped them a few questions and held the attention of our table and several others. "It's the Earth Kitchen mostly, and Zeus' — they're going up."
Disbelief was my first reaction, and as I tried to make sense of everything, I realized this wasn't a simple grease or trash fire. Images of "The Towering Inferno" and the Beverly Hills Supper Club flashed through my mind, but surprisingly didn't linger. I think it was the knowledge that the two still-sober town criers had voluntarily entered the upstairs portion of a crowded bar two doors down from the fire. That kind of foolhardiness can be dangerously reassuring.
Soon, a fireman appeared, not to evacuate the bar, but to use the bathroom. Shortly after he left, the lights, already dimmed in the midst of the coal strike, went out completely, leaving Nick's in total blackness.
No one panicked even then, and the bartender started to break out some candles. Before any were lit, however, the lights came back on, and our curiosity was aroused enough to join the morbid spectators outside.
After leaving the bar, my friends and I walked directly into a roped-off area and were greeted by several fire trucks and an ambulance parked with its lights flashing. It didn't seem to be going anywhere, which we took as a good sign that no one was hurt.
The water from the snorkel cascaded onto the blaze, and the layer of ice on the street and sidewalk was rapidly turning to slush.
The awed spectators in the street were preoccupied with the possibility of the fire spreading and eventually consuming the bar. The red-brick edifice that houses Rocky's Rec Room stood between Nick's and the blaze, and the firefighters worked safely from that structure. Most of the friends I talked to at the scene had mistakenly heard that Nick's was also on fire.
Another friend, who was in an evening class at the time of the fire, later told me that someone had actually gone so far as to interrupt her class with the following announcement: "You can say goodbye to Nick's, because it's just collapsed."
Don Toon
by Marianne Gleissner
February 14. That's a date that brings visions of hearts and flowers to the minds of lovers everywhere. But for those of us who aren't engaged in a "meaningful relationship," Valentine's Day is a real bummer.
The center desk at my dormitory became a flower shop, as spring bouquets and rose-filled vases arrived from local florists on Valentine's Day. An extra table was set up to hold the floral arrangements. Surely among all those flowers, there had to be one with my name on it. I checked my mailbox for a "pink slip," the treasured signal that a package or flowers were waiting for me at the desk. But as usual, the only thing I pulled out of my mailbox was a handful of air.
The picture wasn't as bleak as I had thought. Earlier in the week, I received several Valentine's Day cards — from my mother and my friends, but none from my "knight in shining armor."
As I watched girls carry bouquets of flowers back to their rooms, I thought, "Oh well, maybe next year." Then the brainstorm came. I decided to become my own secret admirer." Next year, I'm going to get flowers on Valentine's Day even if I have to send them myself!
(TOP) In Read Center, junior Steve Caldwell waits for freshman Missy Ellis to wrap his newly-acquired carnations. (ABOVE) Tony Farag peers past a cupid to brush his teeth on Valentine's Day morning in Wright Quad.
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Old factory stores IU's 'junk'
photos/Don Toon
(ABOVE) Two workers survey the unwanted university items stored in Showers Warehouse. The building was once a prospering factory. (RIGHT) Unwanted items line the walls of the warehouse.
(BELOW) Two old wagon wheels sit in the IU warehouse waiting for a new home in a yet unbuilt museum. (LEFT) Classroom chairs sit idle in one corner of Showers Warehouse.
by Julia Corbett
The floorboards are old and soft. The smell is a combination attic-barnyard smell. The chill hangs. Drips of melting snow drop from the beamed roof to the floor. Pigeons coo from the rafters and drip, too.
At the turn of the century, it was a gigantic factory called Showers. About 20 years ago, IU obtained possession and began using the building at Seventh and Morton streets as a university warehouse. And what's being housed there now?
A dentist's chair, rat cages, reels of film, mailboxes, buggies and wagons, auditorium chairs, library shelves and tables, a sod buster, a cider press, a bear (stuffed), old yearbooks and dozens of thriving pigeons stay there. "If people (in university departments) don't have any place to put their things, they bring 'em down here, and here they set," said Bill Crohn, caretaker of the warehouse.
The un-current items do indeed sit, and sit and sit. Sometimes they get wet. Sometimes they get covered with pigeon droppings. Watched after they are; cared for they are not. Some things are sold at an auction every fall, but the owners decide which, if any, of their possessions will be offered for sale. Much of the space is occupied by opera and theatre
photos/Julia Corbett
department props and scenery pieces. Another section is full of antiques, antique-looking buggies and pieces of farm machinery. Crohn said these items would be moved as soon as a museum is built for them.
The saddest inhabitants of the IU warehouse are the large, oak tables with massive, carved legs and matching chairs, many leaded-glass windows and piles of green, metal bookshelves. They came from the old library after it burned; Crohn explained. He said the tables are being stored because they will not fit into any new buildings. Plastic covers protect several tables; many more are just left to be damaged by water and pigeon droppings.
