Last year an issue exploded onto the local scene, summoning Conservatory faculty and Harkness residents alike to join rank and attend a town meeting to confront it. The proposed airport expansion has been a volitile subject ever since, and its intrigue is exacerbated by the questions that surround it still. It is encouraging that the sometimes apathetic Oberlin student body is so aware and concerned about this airport expansion. But are they being loud enough?

The expansion of the runway seems at one level a simple way to improve the economic viability of the small Lorain County Regional Airport. When built, the airport was supposed to bring needed commerce to the region, creating jobs and promoting development. In fact, it has done anything but. The airport has never posted a profit and has been a drain of tax-payer resources since it was built, a fact bemoaned often at the town meetings on the subject. The cities of Lorain and Elyria have cut their funding to it. The financial burden now lies in the pocketbooks of county taxpayers. To assume that an extra 2000 feet of runway will somehow reverse this trend not only defies logic, it contradicts study after study done on similar regional airports around the country which indicate their financial instability.

Noise pollution is an issue formost in the minds and ears of the Conservatory. Faculty are concerned that Finney chapel concerts will have to compete with both cargo jets and the occasional ambulance. According to foes of the expansion, the jets a new runway would ideally attract would be deafening to residents in Oberlin.

Some proponents of the expansion site the need for economic development in the area. But whether one is pro development or a back-to-nature buff, the issue is the same: unplanned development will lead to more economic problems down the line than it will solve. If jobs are needed, jobs can be planned in a rational way and those same jobs can be part of an overall integrated approach to development.

The facts are that plans are going forward with this airport expansion. Opponents, and yes student opponents too, need to be viligent and vocal about this issue. Calling commissioners and participating in citizen councils is not as time consuming as to prohibit it from even the busiest student. But the yelling has to happen now. If it waits much longer, the noise could be drowned out by the drone of I-beam cargo jets.

Baraka still relevant today

Those of us who crowded into the dustbowl last year to watch a roller coaster of a rendition of Dutchman are at least a little familiar with Amiri Baraka's works. The play was penned by him in the early 60's, during what some refer to as his "transitional period." He was LeRoi Jones then, married to a Jewish woman and a part of the Greenwich village community. Subsequently, he and his wife divorced, Malcom X was assassinated, and he became an outspoken advocate of black nationalism.

In January of 1969, he spoke at Finney Chapel, choosing "Contemporary black problems and issues" as the title of his talk. The front page photo in this newspaper showed Jones/ Baraka in dark glasses, protectively flanked by three suited bodyguards. In response to a question posed by a white student who asked about the details of a black nation, Jones stated that, "We are a nation - but a nation without power. We are an old national and 300 years won't change that. You won't last 1000 years, certainly not controlling us."

After over two hours of jazz Thursday night, Baraka again stood on the stage of Finney. Without bodyguards this time, stoop shouldered and graying at his temples, he still demanded attention.

"It is so tragic to be human and ruled by animals," was one prominent line in the first piece he spoke, metaphorically echoing his earlier statements. His message was delivered in often staccato verse, punctuated by instrumentation and Pyeng's haunting vocals. The call for dispersing with the European version of "God" was deafening. The examination and rejection of the white man's value system was just as loud thirty years after his first appearance, if somewhat differently packaged.

While the struggle for a more just, equal society continues, it was the work and vision of people like Baraka that helped us make the strides to overcome at least some of the hate in the past. That he continues to fight and critique and demand that we do the same is a challenge for us to model.