4 Tuesday, February 20, 1973 University Daily Kansan KANSAN Apathy and Informality In the last four years KU has seen student government mature from the pacifier of the activists to the play pen of the Hill Topper set. And now student government seems to be in a sorrier state than ever. It is possible that some potential candidates for student body president decided that they could not beat Mert Buckley and decided not to run. But since there is only one candidate when half a dozen have usually shown up, it would not be unfair to say that there is considerable apathy towards student government. I suppose that I should join every other high school and college editorial writer across the country and tell you that you should care about student government. But in a way, I suppose that I should this is one duty that editorial writers in their infinite wisdom should let you forego. The senate was launched four years ago with great hopes, but little real power. The only power that backed it up was the seemingly endless capacity of the KU students to raise hell when they were unhappy. When this power failed, the segate's fate was sealed. I do not think, however, that this is reason enough to go back to an era when you paid your tuition and let maturity tell you what was good for you. Students have more to say about the policies of their University than they have ever had before. Part of this gain has been made through the formal structure of the school committees, but most of it has come through informal communication with faculty and administrators. Of course, there are still a few of the old timers who could care less about the students' attitudes toward their courses. There are certainly a few deans left who don't care what the students think about their schools. But time is even eating away at them. Faculty members and administrators are willing to listen to students because they realize the common interest of all in better courses and better programs. It is hoped that this relationship will be more enduring than the interest in student government. —Eric Kramer Marriage Defended "Infidelity and divorce are here to stay," it is proclaimed daily. Who decided that? It's like asking who started the most recent war. And as a war, discussion of this aberration appears as ceaseless as it does fruitfulness. If figures by themselves told the whole story, post-graduation plans for marriage would seem almost funereal. Statistical predictions last year suggested that in 1972 alone, 800,000 couples would become divorced and of the over 70 per cent married. Of the remaining 30 marry, 50 per cent of the “remarried” would again seek a separation. One is reminded of the tonnage of bombs dropped over North Vietnam, or perhaps the number of sorties flown provides a more accurate analogy—does one consider first the potential innocent victims of destructive action, or the threats posed to the perpetrators? At risk of a thorough bludgeoning by the cultural authorities of the day, I protest. I do not find infidelity, separation, divorce or their variations acceptable, legitimate or, most importantly, realistic. I particularly refuse to accept the type of acclaimed analysis put forth by the likes of Alvin Toffler (of "Future Shock" fame). Toffer's book devotes a neat argument to "The Odds Against Love." The author would have us believe that the odds are so tremendously poor that, when they are coupled with other factors of transience, the only choices left to us as individuals will be variegated juxtapositions of the sexes or serial monogramous marriages. I don't buy it, Mr. Toffler and Company. "Future Shock" asserts that the orthodox marriage presupposes that two young people will find one another and marry, with love as the primary justification for the family's very existence. "Love, however, is defined in terms of shared growth," Toffer writes. "If love is a product of shared growth and we are to measure success in marriage by the degree to which matched development actually occurs, it becomes possible to make a strong and ominous prediction about the future." Toffler proceeds expansively to throw out a few tidbits to those who sit with bated breath wondering "Whatever is to be done?" According to the soothsayer, one character's variation" in relationships and lifespan. "Of course there will be some who, through luck, interpersonal skill and high intelligence, will find it possible to marry someone whose marriages work." Toffler concedes. I object to your portrayal of the concepts of love and troth, Mr. Toffler. Surely in that big bibliography of yours, you could have found space to at least read "Love in the Western World," or could you simply not bear the archaic 1940-ish language? In substance, de Rougemont's position is as follows: "I propose to speak only of a truth that is observed by virtue of the absurd—that is to say, simply because it has been pledged—and by being an absolute which will uphold husband and wife as persons. "For fidelity is not in the least a conservatism, but rather a construction. (Kindly note the word "construction" vs. "growth," Mr. Toftier et al.) "An absurdity quite as much as passion, it is to be distinguished from passion by its persistent refusal to submit to its own dream, by its persistent need of acting in behalf of the beloved, by its being persistently in contact with a reality it seeks to control. not to flee. "The fidelity of which I am speaking is foolish, and yet our folly is then of the most sober and everyday kind. A sober folly that rather closely simulates behaving sensibly; that is neither heroic nor challenging, but a patient and fond application." So, Mr. Toffler and friends, a sufficient point is this: Would you prefer to sell a daughter or son on de Rougemont's 'absurd' control of the estate? I would appeal to a "rich" life of sustained fantasy and redundant self-destruction? Nepenthe is not easily found. —C. C. Caldwell Huey Newton Is Unusual Radical OAKLAND, CALIF.-The Lakehouse Apartments, a high, white-towered product of urban renewal, has a sign out front advertising that it affords its tenants a "putting green" and Nicholas von Hoffman "full security." Thus, before the doorman would let the party of visitors in, a closed-circuit TV camera might be installed. Zen master with his shaved head, the Zen master's wife, who carried bouquet of zinnies in an old coffee can, and the poet who wore a coat that looked like a dress. On the 25th floor they were admitted into the apartment by Big Man, whom they embraced in friendship, and a moment later they were saying hello to the baddest, awhested and shaken Huey P. Newton. Huey invited them to sit around the long table in the dining room of his living room, which is furnished with not much more than a set of high-powered binoculars on a tripod permanently focused on the steelhead in the Alameda County Courthouse where Huey spent so many days. Although the Black Panther party has put him in the apartment for protection, Huey himself isn't particularly security-conscious. "life is going on," he said when he was "when," he has written in one of the Zen poems he shows the master, who reads them while Huey does the duty of a host, making coffee, pouring out Courvoisier, and the abolition opposite of the stereotype black militant. A smiling, voluble man of compelling likability, his speech is devoid of four-letter words and his sentences have the deficient syntax of the hyper-excreted intellectual who has so much to say about Hegel and cannot get the ideas out fast enough. Huey denies he's an intellectual, insisting, "I'm an artist. I don't believe in the party has always been planning strategy. Before I went to prison only made one speech. I'm an orator. I'm not eloquent." Huey has just registered at the University of California at Santa Cruz to take his Ph.D. You wonder why he needs one since he's as completely self-taught as Abraham Lincoln. "I couldn't read words like 'car' and 'house' when I got out of high school," he says. "I wasn't function illiterate. I was an illiterate. Vincent Price taught me how to read." One of Huey's brothers was an actor who had some records of Price's theatrical readings, which Huey would listen to while following the words in the printed text. The idea of being regarded as a "thug and a gangster and a Ph. D" amuses Huey, but he insists that his reason for getting a doctorate is political strategy in a period when the Panthers are trying to change their reputation in the Oakland black community because they have safely non-violent political force: "With credentials I will be able to move freely through the universities of this country. It But what seems to have brought Huey and the Zen master together is the similarity of their experience in meditation. Just as the Zen master sits by himself in contemplation, so did Huey learn to embrace the confinement in prison. "I was terrified the first time I was in solitary. I started to vomit but I swallowed my vomit because I didn't want to admit to myself that I had to throw up," says Huey of learning to survive in the dark floor, black walls in the floor except a hole in the floor for a toilet. "They'd only flush it every two weeks. I ate little so didn't have to defacate often." doesn't matter to me personally if they call me doctor or skunk flower." The strength to keep from going "dingy" Huey thinks he gets from his father. "He was always such a responsible Negro," says Huey, speaking not in derision. "He was the one who even then was all he could handle. When he was in the hospital and we thought he was going to die, he said, 'Here's my watch and ring. The third drawer of the bureau there's money for the bills. I got the bill from him, you say screw the bills new'." Couldn't Huey forget the Black Panthers now? He's done his work, he's got his book coming out, he could be a professor. But he wasn't able to manage ability. Huey is like his father. He's going to get his bills paid. GM has taken extraordinary precautions to keep these documents from getting out. The company Gerstenberg last october reminded employees that "strict security is essential to the success of our business." He warned of "appropriate disciplinary action" against employes violating corporate security. (C) Washington Post-King Features Syndicate These defects are described in an array of documents that range from Dealer Service Problem Reports to GM's hush-hush form 1241 reports on preliminary investigations. Some of the reports bear notations such as "GM ACTUATED:" Not To Be Disclosed, or "Company Corporation." We also have confidential minutes of internal meetings and photographs intended for GM eyes only. Jack Anderson GM Auto Flaws Remain Hidden WASHINGTON — Conscientious and concerned employees have turned over to us thousands of incriminating documents from the files of General Motors as the world's largest corporate citadel. These internal papers show that the great motor moguls, despite their past embarrassments at the hands of Ralph Nader, are continuing to cover up serious safety defects in the vehicles they turn loose on the highways. GM has been forced to recall millions of defective cars to repair faulty engine mounts and steering systems. But the documents in our possession show that at least a dozen other critical hazards plague millions of vehicles that have not been recalled. Another report on trouble in Ardmore, Pa, notes: "Left front wheel sheared off. Rolled toward a group of children. Didn't hit them. They jumped." Never heard any more. Yester-day right wheel sheared off." A month later, GM Vice President John Z. DeLorean told a secret management conference: "Every defect, each recall only diminishes the profit of our advertising we do. The plain and simple truth is that poor quality threatens to destroy us." GM seems more interested, nevertheless, on covering up their defects than improving the quality. The attitude betrayed in the secret papers is that GM still puts profits ahead of people. The company has failed to notify car owners of chronic air pollution from its automotive components as steering, brakes, visibility, electrical systems. This failure to inform motorists and pedestrians alike. A typical report, describing the brake problems of a 1968 BMW sedan in New Jersey, states: "Car involved in minor accident. Owner claimed brakes went to floor. Dealer did work on brakes after the accident. (A few days later) owner claims brakes went to streetkeren. He caused him to strike streetkeren." The evidence in the documents has been supplemented by discussions with the concerned employers and with the serious defect, an employee close to the problem said sadly: "GM will conceal things. They have a wanton disregard for the public's feelings." You've something like this to go unresolved. They haven't recalled the cars; they haven't notified anybody. It probably answers their problems that ever existed." He said GM's attitude was guided by money. I wanted them to take positive action in a definite way in the interest of the public, Humane Hunt because the public is responsible for their multibillion profit annually." The U.S. Homeland Society lost its court case to ban use of bowels-and-arrows and antique weapons for hunting on federal wildlife lands, but it may be on the way to an unexpected outside view across the courts. The society claims these weapons main or cripple deer and other animals instead of killing them outright. Despite the unsuccessful court proceedings, the Department of Interior has begun a quiet survey to see whether hunters should be given more protection, and they hunt in the federal refuges. The Department, in an internal memo, says it is also considering statistics on how many animals live on the lands and how many are crippled by hunters. Copyright, 1973 by United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Readers Respond Pearson Criticism Refuted; Awards Termed Distasteful Pearson To the Editor: This is not a letter of indignation. This is a letter whose sole purpose is to make public aware of what any fair-minded reader of Kim S. Winder's letter on Marvin (Keb. 2), already knows. As the Kansan's readers will recall, Swinder proclaimed in his letter his dismay for the College Assessor to disclose the curriculum offered by the Pearson Integrated Humanities Program as a substitute for requirements in the College. Swindler then proceeded to take a few swings at the program, most of which seemed to be aimed somewhere below the belt. He claimed that the director of the program was a sophist, that the program's faculty were instructors, perhaps even in their understanding of the Western tradition," that the program's faculty practice indetermination that the program was elitist. And what evidence did he offer to substantiate his charges? Apparently nothing but his own word. He claimed that he could have done something defrauding, but he did not provide evidence for this charge. If, in fact, "the future of the entire University is at stake," it seems reasonable to replace his verbiage with substance, his exhortation with reasonable argument and his spirit of goodwill and the spirit of truth. By Sokoloff Griff and the Unicorn accomplished something worthwhile. Somehow I never seem to hear much of them, indeed it is small wonder that any of them should not be discouraged; but I know they are around, and I, for one, don’t mind. But those who aren’t (so Mr. Duncan says) doing much of anything. Give me a break, will ya? John Neibling Lawrence graduate student David Radd Idaho Falls, Idaho, Graduate student Kudos To Editor. I confess that I did not get much of a charge out of Mr. Duncan's editorial listing his nominations for the student government "awards," especially or value them as something distasteful about adding editorial fuel to the fire as it encourages students, faculty and other members of the University to maintain an cooperative attitude toward Student Senate operations. The committee could be the candidate for his own nomination for student body president. 1 How about, instead, giving some sincere thanks to those who against difficult odds (including Mr. Duncan's attitude) actually THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN An All-American college newspaper Kansan Telephone Numbers Newroom—UN 4-4810 Business Office—UN 4-4358 NEWS STAFF News Advisor .. Suzanne Shaw Editor .. Susanette Editor Associate Editor .. Billy Carlson Campus Editor .. Bob Simpson Campus Editor .. Brian Dunbar. News Editor .. Anita Knoppe Copy Chiefs Copy Giancio Mike.. Linda Schild Assist. Campus Editors Rolin Groom. 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