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Ron Kurtenbach is a Lincoln, Nebraska Communist born January 6, 1943. A community activist, he is one of the original group which founded local Lincoln radio station KZUM [1] and the local grocery co-op Open Harvest. [2] He is also one of the group which founded the short-lived Lincoln Communist music venue, The Red and Black Café, in the early 1990s, a spin-off to another talk program he produced with ex-wife Sally Herrin, noted Lincoln author and teacher, and a number of others called "Zero Street" (from the Allen Ginsberg poem "Wichita Vortex Sutra" in which AG called Lincoln's main drag, O Street, "Zero Street"). Many Lincoln bands, including Plastik Trumpet and Hour Slave played at the Red and Black.
He was a long-time custodian at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. [3] He received his Ph.D. in English in May 2000, and taught briefly at both the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and at Kearney. [4]
Kurtenbach is most well known for his long-running controversial Public-access television call-in comedy show, Ron's World, that was seen nightly on local Lincoln cable TV. On the program, he explained the basics of Marxist thinking, read poetry and spent most of the time discussing his politics with the general public.
Prior to cable television, Kurtenbach was the editor/publisher of the Lincoln Gazette. His "free or donation" weekly paper featured everything from political perspectives to poetry to the cartoons of the talented, local cartoonist Scott Stewart (most notable among Stewart's creations was "Telegram Sam," the bomb-toting anarchist). By the late '70s, the Lincoln Gazette was available in Lincoln, Omaha and communities across Nebraska. A group dissatisfied with Kurtenbach left the Gazette to form the short-lived Nebraska Dispatch.
Kurtenbach's stature as a local cult figure grew to the point that he once was invited to be the host of a public school "celebrity" basketball charity event.
Kurtenbach is married to wife Maria, and moved to China to teach English. Ron now lives in Portugal.[ citation needed ] Kurtenbach is the Father of two sons, and has three grandchildren.[ citation needed ]
Lincoln is the capital city of the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Lancaster County. The city covers 100.4 square miles (260.035 km2) with a population of 292,657 in 2021. It is the state's 2nd most populous city and the 73rd-largest in the United States. Lincoln is the economic and cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area in southeastern Nebraska, the Lincoln Metropolitan and Lincoln-Beatrice Combined Statistical Areas. The statistical area is home to 361,921 people, making it the 104th-largest combined statistical area in the United States.
The University of Nebraska–Lincoln is a public land-grant research university in Lincoln, Nebraska, United States. Chartered in 1869 by the Nebraska Legislature as part of the Morrill Act of 1862, the school was the University of Nebraska until 1968, when it absorbed the Municipal University of Omaha to form the University of Nebraska system. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship institution of the state-wide system. The university has been governed by the Board of Regents since 1871, whose members are elected by district to six-year terms.
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The Proseminar in Homophile Studies, one of the first courses in the United States about homosexuality, was held in the fall semester of 1970. It was taught at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln by professor Louis Crompton and others. The class was interdisciplinary, and used elements of the social sciences and the humanities.
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