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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, September 17, 1967
To raise hell'
Our policy is to raise hell.
Not hell as Joe Freshman and his Suzy Coed might raise it on a wet Friday afternoon, but hell raised in what may be called a "journalistic" manner.
Such hell-raising begins with the premise that if the boat needs rocking, we may jolly well sink it. In finer terms, this means that if our All Student Council should begin to unconsciously legislate itself out of existence, we will tell you about it on the news pages without bias or inaccuracy. On this page, however, our editorial writers may disregard fears of bias and, as Hamlet once exclaimed, "know a more horrid hent."
However, exposing the farsical—or exposing anything for that matter—is not the sole job of a hell-raising newspaper. To complement the expose, we must search behind the mundane and even make the mundane readable. To that end, we'll report the deeds and—if it be the case—the misdeeds of Strong Hall and all who hold authority. We'll poke around among the student body, writing about the ersatz hippie or the young Minuteman, the power-grabbers and the power despisers, the tuned in and the pressed-down.
In short, we intend to bash and juxtapose logic and ethics, making hell-raising and its adherents, hell-raisers, responsible.—Dan Austin, Managing Editor
We need speakers
Two years ago KU plunged into a new century with an eye on the present and an ear to the future. For a golden week in the spring of 1966 an enlightened University remembered books are not the only access to knowledge, and its citizens heard today's and tomorrow's concepts from such progenitors of the times as Ashley Montagu, Carl Menninger and Jules Feiffer.
The second year of the new century was a plunge back into the dark ages. Although speakers offered by individual departments were the finest in their fields, Hoch Auditorium was silent, and organizations such as SUA's Minority Opinions Forum forgot to live.
The third year is here, and a little initiative may be imperative. For no matter how superb the permanent faculty, no matter how fine the academic or architectural innovations on campus, the University cannot maintain its high academic level while failing to offer its students the voice of the outside world.
Many universities have partially solved the problem of textbook isolation by importing top intellectuals as visiting professors. KU has successfully done this on a limited level, but the handicaps of her situation must be acknowledged. Even while conceding that KU is a highly respected academic institution, and dreaming that she could produce the necessary funds, we still must ask—would Arnold Toynbee or Marshall McLuhan want to journey to the heart of America for a semester of teaching? No offense meant. We're just asking.
But today and tomorrow can be
brought to the student via the speech circuit, and the fund of speakers is inexhaustible. The political boys—Robert Kennedy, J. William Fulbright, George Romney, and infinitum—love college audiences, and ASC president Kyle Craig reports we may be able to "borrow" such notables when they appear at K-State this year. Sure we'll take them, but must KU use handouts?
The past reticence to present top speakers might be blamed on lack of funds. But KU has an $18.6 million Council for Progress, with one fourth of the total, as we understand it, allocated for general advancement. Surely giving students and faculty access to today's leading thought-makers would be well worth the money. The ASC and SUA also have funds for speakers. Where are the speakers?
The oft-heard complaint that students disappear during all-campus speeches was disproved by attendance at most major speeches of the past years: Inter-Century Seminar speakers addressed full houses, hundreds were turned away from Gen. Maxwell Taylor's spring of 1965 speech and the Kansas Union lobby held the ballroom's overflow when the late George Lincoln Rockwell expounded his Nazi views in 1964.
Let's hope that KU will come out of the dark this year, and bring the world to its doorstep. So far the future looks bright. SUA and the University have between them signed three noted internationalists to speak.
A good start but we need more.
Betsy Wright Editorial Editor
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY kansan
Newsroom—UN 4-3646 — Business Office—UN 4-3198
Published at the University of Kansas daily during the academic year except holidays and examination periods. Mail subscription fee: $8 a m a t. $10 a y e. Second class postage paid at Lawcens, Kan. 60444. Accommodations, goods services and employment advices d off d to all universities and hard work, college or university materials. Choose class d n. not necessarily those of the University of Kansas or the State Board of R gents.
Managing Editor--Dan Austin
Business Manager--John Lee
Assistant Managing Editors
City Ed'tor
Ed'tor al ed'ors
Senior Ed'tor
Wire Ed'tor
Assistant City Ed'tor
Advertising Manager
Artistic Director Manager
Promotion Manager
Circulation Manager
Classified Manager
Management Manager
Will Hardy, Jerry Klein,
Paul Haney, Gary Murrell, Rich Loveff
Betsy Wright, Justin Marshall
Chip Rouse, Don Steffens
Don Walker
Merrily Robinson, Charla Jenkins
John Cassady
Beverly Harden
Dave Holt
Warren Massey
Lyle Duer
Josh Klause
Member Associated Collegiate Press
Letters Policy
The University Daily Kansan encourages signed letters to the editor for publication. They should be typed and contain the writer's classification and home town. Letters are subject to editing by the Kansan staff. Libelous statements will not be printed. Send letters to the editorial desk, 112 Flint Hall.
Here are some of the more recent paperbacks you may want to look at in those many free moments you'll have this fall. First is Alberto Moravia's THE LIE (Dell, 95 cents), a "La Dolce Vita" kind of examination of life in contemporary Italy. Moravia remains one of the best writers on the international science. Evan Hunter, whose favorite scene seems to be the big city, has written stories compiled into a volume called THE JUNGLE KIDS (Dell, 60 cents). It is not for escape moments.
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Paperbacks
More dated but still tough is a collection by the once-celebrated Dashiell Hamnett, THE BIG KNOCKOVER (Dell. 60 cents). These are of the hardboiled school of the Twenties, and they'll seem old-fashioned to some readers. Frank Yerby is with us again, too, in AN ODOR OF SANCTITY (Dell, 55 cents), lusty, busty historical fiction, Spain in the ninth century. How this man does pound 'em out!
Really pretty trashy but for that reason likely to sell is Larry McMurtry's THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (Dell, 75 cents), all about an adolescent boy and a woman in her forties. Also maybe trashy but great for the western fan is Bliss Lomax's LAST CALL FOR A GUNFIGHTER (Dell, 45 cents). The plot . . . well, you see there's this marshal. . . Different types are Joseph Rosner's THE HATER'S MANBOOK (Dell, 95 cents), which is a guide to ill will and distribe through the ages. Do we really need to learn how to insult others? Finally, a compilation by David A. DeTurk and A. Poulin Jr., called THE AMERICAN FOLK SCENE (Dell, 95 cents). This one should entrance, and rightly, the Americanists, or even just those who regard Bobby Dylan as Our Leader.
For many readers, a new paperback by Louis C. Jones, THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT (Hill and Wang, $1.75), will be as enjoyable as anything coming out in print. It's a comprehensive and highly entertaining collection of American ghost stories, more than 200 of same—haunted houses, murders, revenge, suicide and haunts. The book is folklore at its best.
Also new, but not in paper-backs, is William Faulkner's PY-LON (Modern Library, $2.45). This, even though Modern Library he's given it such royal stature, is not top Faulkner. It's about flying folks, as Faulkner was himself at one time, and it is not set in the Faulkner country of Mississippi. But even low-grade Faulkner is high-grade American literature.
TODAY
Official Bulletin
College Faculty Meeting. 4:30 p.m.
Forum Room, Union.
TOMORROW
Carillon Recital. Albert Gerken.
7:00 p.m.
SCA Membership Meeting. 7:39
p.m. Ballroom, Union.
The Hill With It by john hill
It was the third of June, another sleepy dusty delta day. Some were choppin' cotton, and others were out bailin' hay.
At dinner time they stopped and walked back to the house to eat, and Ma hollered at the back door.
"Y'all remember to wipe your feet."
"AW, MA, you know we got a dirt floor."
The family gathered around the table and began to eat.
Ma said, "I got some news this mornin' from Chocktaw Ridge. Today Billie Joe McAlisher jumped off of Tallahatchie Bridge."
And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the black-eyed peas, "Well, Billie Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits please."
"You should talk," said little brother. "You're gonna catch the virus and die next spring."
"THAT NICE YOUNG PREACHER, Brother Taylor, stopped by today. He said he saw a girl who looked a lot like you up on Checktaw Ridge, and she and Billie Joe were throwin' something off Tallahatchie Bridge."
"Oh, that was just a letter," said the daughter through a goeyce mouthful of biscuits. "It was from the University of Kansas and they send it to all the new students, like Billie Joe."
"What did the letter say," asked little brother, who was quietly gagging on a black-eyed pea.
"Oh, it told all the funny stuff about starting KU, and their new College-Within-A-College program. It mentioned before Billie Joe could live in Ellsworth Hall. he had to stay in Hashinger Hall for previews, and Templin Hall for rush, which were both his residence hall within a residence hall. They have you meet the Dean of Men, and all the other deans, but especially the dean in charge of your college within a college since he's your dean within a dean."
"THEN THEY ENCOURAGED HIM to get real involved with either his residence hall floor activities, or his pledge class, since they would be his living group within a living group."
"Startin' at that place," Pa mumbled, "sounds harder'n tryin' to poke a polecat out from underneath the front porch with a wet rope."
"Sure, Pa. And then because the last number of your student number is important because of enrollment, since you can't take some courses unless it's odd or even, they say to be sure and know your student number within a number."
It was quiet for a moment around the table.
"I'll have another piece of apple pie; you know, it don't seem right."
"I KNOW," MA SAID, "I think it's the crust."
"No, I mean about Billie Joe and all the stuff you've got to go through to start college."
"Yeah," said Pa es he reached for his knife to have some more black-eyed peas. "I guess that's why he went out and jumped off of a bridge within a ridge."
"There's Money Enough To Support Both Of You Now, Doesn't That Make You Feel Better?"