CHATTERBOX

ISU's Non Tenure Track faculty will finally get to vote on having a union, Wednesday, April 23. After a year of delays by the ISU administration, will the election go ahead without intimidation? Will ISU finally provide the union with contact information for voters in the union election, as required by law? Will ISU try to quickly announce reforms that promise to help NTT faculty? Just don't be surprised, if a union vote succeeds, to find the union organizers among NTT faculty suddenly tossed out of their jobs.

Pantagraph war headline of the week (from the front page of April 3 Business section): "War compels consumers to spend on color, comfort." Damn this horrible war! How much longer can we Americans be expected to sacrifice for our country by purchasing colorful merchandise and spa products?

A shocking letter appeared in the April 2 Pantagraph from Roman Essery of LeRoy:

"This is a letter to express my outrage at the behavior of some protesters at Illinois Wesleyan University on March 24. I heard that a Marine wearing his dress blues was going to visit his brother at the school to say goodbye. This Marine was shipping out for duty in Iraq. As the Marine passed the protesters, they began spitting on him and using the foulest language to taunt him. I firmly believe in the right of people to protest, but these kind of actions are just completely out of order."

Indeed, this is outrageous behavior-and it's completely fictitious. Numerous witnesses report that nothing like that happened at IWU. Even the Pantagraph immediately should have realized how dubious this hearsay claim was. The "protesters spit on soldiers" bit is an urban legend from the Vietnam Era. What are the odds that pro-peace protesters who have never said a word against American soldiers would start spitting on someone just for wearing a uniform? What are the odds that a Marine hadn't been shipped to Iraq but was leaving just after the war started and happened to walk by a protest? The Pantagraph would have never printed the letter if it had said, "I heard State Farm employees were spitting on people." But libeling the anti-war movement is perfectly acceptable in the mainstream media.

The April 5 Vidette represented the best and worst of its journalism. First, the worst: a front-page story about the Institute of Humane Studies' summer seminar in Washington, D.C. IHS is a libertarian group devoted to attacking government and worshipping the free market, but the article did nothing but quote the IHS PR guy. The headline should have been, "Right-wing nuts in Washington extend deadline for summer indoctrination seminar." What idiot would put that story on the front page instead of an article about ISU professors discussing the war? In the same issue was the start of Anthony Zoubek's promising hatchet job on filmmaker Michael Moore, a 2,000-word diatribe describing his love for-and disappointment with-the incendiary documentarian. In the April 10 installment, Zoubek will give us the supposed proof of his assertions about Moore, based on numerous interviews. Zoubek's piece is far from perfect, including the silly idea that Moore can't be telling the truth unless he lives a working-class life in Flint, Michigan. Like any work of non-fiction on a controversial topic (especially a comedy about guns) "Bowling for Columbine" can be disputed. The truth is, most journalism (including Moore's) is full of errors, distortions, and lies-but no one knows about it unless someone bothers to rip it apart. And that's the value of Zoubek's article, if he has the facts to back up his claims. But we have to wonder why the longest, most thoroughly researched piece of investigative journalism to appear in the Vidette in recent memory analyzes a funny movie. Why doesn't the Vidette examine ISU policies or local businesses or national politics with the same fervor that Zoubek shows for exposing Moore?

ISU ex-basketball coach Tom Richardson reached a settlement with ISU last week, but the amount is being kept secret. Considering that Richardson had initially been offered $90,000 to leave quietly, there's no doubt that the settlement must reach six figures. The secrecy may be the worst part of this dubious agreement. Why should a public institution be able to conceal the cost of its problems? If the pay of employees is a matter of public record, how can the size of a payoff be concealed? If public university budgets are supposed to be public, how does ISU intend to give someone a large sum of money in secret? Will the money come from the athletic department (that is, from student fees), or is there some other slush fund used for it?