Letters

KPSU correction

I’m a student DJ at KPSU, and I wanted to point out a factual error in your recent article on KPSU, which states that the station is in violation of its constitution. You correctly note that the constitution specifically limits community participation at the station to “20 percent of KPSU’s programming.” However, “programming” is a radio industry-defined term that refers to any content broadcast over the air. By radio industry standards, KPSU has 168 hours of programming per week. Of those hours, community member participation is at or only slightly over the 20-percent number required by our constitution. The vast majority of content on KPSU is provided by live student DJs, like myself, or by student-selected automated programming.

The radio station has never turned away a student DJ in favor of a community member and is very actively pursuing additional student involvement in order to meet the goal of increasing KPSU’s student voice, but it is factually incorrect to state that the station is in egregious violation of its constitution. Furthermore, KPSU community members provide a tremendous service to the student DJs at KPSU by providing continuity of quality programming over breaks and summer months, hard-won technical knowledge, broadcasting experience, a direct means of community outreach, greatly increased station listenership and underwriting dollars that reduce the station’s overall fiscal cost to the school.

I hope that you will print a retraction in regard to your erroneous interpretation of the constitution, which is very unambiguous by radio industry technical terminology. However, the real bottom line here is that student DJs at KPSU incur very little cost from community member involvement in exchange for a very large benefit.

Ryan Van Loh KPSU

Proposal right for OSA

While I do not begrudge the Vanguard staff their opinions, such as that expressed in the Jan. 25 editorial “Proposal wrong for OSA,” but it is a disservice to the Vanguard readership to give said opinion before offering a clear explanation of the proposal. This piece refers to a “whirlwind of confusion and angst,” yet the Vanguard, as the most obvious forum for a discussion that might disperse that whirlwind, has done little but feed the storm.

It is crucial to recognize that the proposed General Assembly is in addition to the current Board and has only three functions: the preliminary selection of ten items for OSA’s annual agenda, the setting of OSA dues and the election of the OSA Board. Membership on the executive board remains unchanged, with two students per member school regardless of size. It is this board that selects the top three agenda items and makes policy decisions. While a larger school may indeed have a louder voice when it comes to preliminary agenda setting, they still have just two votes when it comes time to set a final agenda and create policy.

I firmly believe that this proposal is best for both PSU and OSA and that most people simply do not understand what is does. In order to foster further informed discussion, I encourage everyone to read and discuss the proposal itself. Copies are available in the ASPSU office as well as on our website (www.aspsu.pdx.edu). Jeremy Snyder ASPSU Director of Communications

Kinky concerns

As you will have probably guessed by the title, I read your article on Kink 101 [“Your pain is my pleasure,” Jan. 25]. The article you wrote you should not have published. It was juvenile and condescending, and I have to wonder what your editors were thinking allowing that story to go through. You not so subtly made jokes about Coral’s weight, you singled individuals out in a derisive manner, and if all you got out of the workshop were that colored handkerchiefs mean sexual displays, ‘weirdos’ being okay being ‘weird’ makes you less comfortable with being what you’re comfortable with, and that sadists don’t like furries (and what was up with the whole soap and education bit? Don’t pass down judgment to people you have never met, because that just makes you look stupid), you should have just not gone. No press would have been better for this particular topic than what you put out.I’m so frustrated, because I almost knew that this was going to happen when I saw your reporter [Stover E. Harger III] sitting there, because he looked completely uninterested and vaguely offended the entire time, and I knew that this was not going to go out in a good way. Your reporter had basically no interest in the article, and heard almost nothing that was actually being said.

This is a sad, pathetic article, and this reporter ought to be ashamed of himself. Next time, think about what you’re writing and who your audience is, don’t write these articles as though you expect people not to read it so you can write whatever you want. Daniel RamsayerQueer Resource Center Board member Shocked by North’s comment

This comment just shocked me: “I wasn’t aware that Aramark was considering lowering some prices…” from Julie North, who manages Portland State’s contract with Aramark [quoted in “Answered!” Jan. 15]. Who is this person, and why is she working at PSU? Has the PSU Administration so completely lost touch with students (and hello, the reason you’re here is to serve students). You’re a university for God’s sake!

I Googled and found out that Julie North is the director of Auxiliary Services and has been at PSU for years. She is in charge of the Aramark contract but didn’t know they were planning to lower their prices?! Something is wrong with this picture. The Vanguard has run article after article about the fact that the prices are too high, and the quality of the food so low. Everyone I talk to in my classes says the food prices are too high and they don’t eat there, and yet the very person in charge of the contract is “unaware.” Please, Interim President Michael Reardon, clean house. Get rid of these people who are so out of touch with the PSU community that they are unaware of what’s happening. Managing the Aramark food contract is this person’s job, and she is obviously not doing it. Use taxpayer dollars and tuition revenue to hire some capable people here at PSU who actually care about the food we eat and the prices we pay.

Thanks for listening, Vanguard. I hope you print this. I am so outraged by the comment and glad you reprinted and emphasized it in a second issue.

Julianna

Guns won’t be given on a whim

I am an officer with Public Safety and this is not an accurate report on what is being discussed in the forums [“Virginia Tech forces closer look at campus safety,” Jan. 30. We are not talking about giving Public Safety Officers guns or tazers. There are four options we are talking about. They are: keep Public Safety the way it is (in which case no one would carry guns), transition into a full PSU police department, make an Oregon University System police department with a PSU branch, or contract with an agency such as Portland Police or Oregon State Police. If officers at PSU carried guns, it would only be because we would have a full police department, the officers would have completed the full police academy and would be certified as peace officers. There is no talk whatsoever about giving guns to Public Safety officers without changing Public Safety into a full police department.

Eamon O’Brien Public Safety Officer