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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, October 6, 1967
Down with motherhood,etc.
Motherhood, the flag, God, and apple pie are four areas of American life that are all too often glossed over and not mentioned. It is time that somebody openly dealt with these uncomfortable issues. We are strongly against them.
Motherhood, considered among the more saintly of American institutions, does not impress us. The praise that this position receives would imply some great achievement or accomplishment, which motherhood does not involve. Let us face the facts. Nothing in the world is easier than motherhood. Except perhaps fatherhood.
The flag is definitely a detriment to American society. Think of the mental torture that generations of Boy Sprouts have undergone, learning how to fold it just that funny little way. Thinks of the total number of man-hours that are taken up before each baseball game, delaying the game, while an entire economic society stands around, shuffling its feet, with its hand over its fountain pens.
And as for God, everybody and their uncle knows He's been dead, or hiding in Argentina,
or something, for semesters now. Just ask any first-semester activist.
Apple pie, which is just chock full oficky goo and stuff anyway, is a hoax that has been perpetrated upon the American public for years. In actuality, one finds that the validity of the old wives' tale about a mythical Apple Pie has no scientific evidence to support it. Laboratory analysis has shown that apple pies are really made of old kumquats. Besides, apple pies are not as American and patriotic as some of our native foods like French fries and pepperoni pizzas.
Motherhood, the flag, God, and apple pie may be awkward social issues which we do not like to admit still linger in this great country of ours, but they should be openly dealt with. We can only become a truly great nation if we take open action in these areas of American life, and not just praise our country continually for her purple mountains' majesty and stuff.
Associate Editorial Editor
John Hill
News analysis
Vietnam views split
By STEWART HENSLEY
BY STEWART HENSLEY WASHINGTON — (UPI)—The resignation of several top officers of the International Voluntary Services in South Vietnam in protest against U.S. policy there points up a basic split in American opinion.
Though it tends to become obscured by the loud arguments over strategy and diplomacy, the split is fundamental, and places honorable men of good will on opposite sides of the question: What is the war all about?
President Johnson and Secretary of State Dean Rusk are fully aware of the incredible civilian suffering and social disintegration that prompted the dedicated volunteers to pull out in protest last month.
But the administration leaders believe the devastation and death in Vietnam, deplorable as it is, is part of the price that must be paid to prevent worse and wider suffering elsewhere if Communist-led forces win in Southeast Asia.
Price too high
The volunteers, whose experience is more subjective and immediate, cannot believe that any
victory in Vietnam—no matter what the hypothetical effects on other regions of the world—can be worth the despair and chaos they have seen and lived with.
In a statement on the resignations, the executive committee of the organization said it was "deeply appreciative of the fine service . . . they have rendered to the people of Vietnam for many years, knows the respect and affection that their consistent work has won for IVS among thousands of Vietnamese, and shares with them a deep concern over the suffering of the Vietnamese."
No proven answer
But whether the protestors' assessment of the global implications of the Vietnam struggle is accurate simply cannot be proved.
When extremists at both ends of the argument are swept aside, when the fuzzy exhibitionists drawn to any major dispute are discounted, there still remains a large mass of middle-of-the-road Americans who are agonizing over Vietnam.
The various polls disclose that a great number of them are confused and uncertain as to whether
the Johnson administration is correct in considering Vietnam the key to the security of Asia as well as a necessary example to the rest of the world.
Face decision
It is this mass of citizens who presumably will decide the outcome of next year's presidential election. They will be seeking during the months ahead some positive evidence to confirm one side or the other of the argument.
It is doubtful that they will be greatly impressed by political or diplomatic gimmicks from either the Democrats or the Republicans. It is also plain that they are beginning to discount the predictable reflex actions of the extremists on both sides of the issue.
But the critical decision to come in November 1968, one that may affect American and world history for decades to come, must be taken in the heat of a political campaign.
And there is concern today among the sober elements on both sides of the question as to whether the forthcoming debate can be kept as sensible and as serious as the high stakes require.
kansan movie review
Family Way' drags
by Scott Nunley
It would be easy to say too much about "The Family Way." Somehow the movie promises to be a great film of 1967—but drags its feet through a series of The Games Families Play.
The British George and Martha are sparked at moments by actor John Mills, who plays the Western Isles noticeably better than he does the Western Prairies. The fire of the Burtons, however, is drowned in dark ale and catsup. Whatever agonizing Mills might have engaged in—over the heavily-hinted adultery of his wife and best friend—Directors John and Ray Boulting allow to seep away from them, like a vagrant odor from the gas works.
Hywel Bennett, as the hesitant young husband, appears a cross between Michael Caine and Paul McCartney. Unfortunately the plot keeps him out of sight all day and out of sorts all night. Had his living been as fascinating as "Morgan's," "The Family Way" would have had more life.
Unfortunately, this is a film without focus. In addition to the marital frosts of both sets of inlaws, plus the sears of the blighted husband, the movie attempts to chart the warming innocence of the child-bride, Hayley Mills has learned a great deal of honesty since "The Moon-Spinners," but she has yet to receive the attention from camera or director that might spark her potential power.
In "The Family Way," Hayley Mills reacts with a waning woodenness to scenes of both passion and misery. If her subject matter has matured, she is far from being a mature actress.
Bill Naughton, the playwright-screenwriter of "The Family Way," has failed to transform his charming little play into cinema. In contrast to his static, stagy indoor scenes, the brief outdoor breeze of the motorcycle scramble bounds with cinematic energy. The vital motion of his "Alfie"—the dynamics of Alfie's city world, the irony of Alfie's own asides to the viewer—is strangled in those confining interiors.
(And the "Beetles" admirer who keeps waiting for Paul McCartney's score to liven the scene had best do his serious waiting at "Sgt. Pepper's" bandstand.)
These are the only flaws that prevent "The Family Way" from being a really fine film. An evening spent with the nosey people of Bolton, England, is by no means a waste of time. Even tepid, today's cinema is capable of providing hotter fare than the chill gruel fed into the American living room.
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