Full speed ahead
The Kansas Union is the core of the University campus. It's a rambling, nondescript building, cozy as an old armchair, with plenty of dimly-lit corners for solitude, and open spaces for togetherness. A trip through the Union is part of each day's education, a place to meet friends and read bulletin boards to see what's happening. The clock that chimes the hours and quarter-hours is an old friend. And we're even growing fond of the damp basement-smelling tunnel, although we hate to admit it.
Now this old meeting-place is getting a face-lift. I suppose it is getting ready for its new mate, the Satellite Union, which promises to be a much more glamorous version of a student center. The architect's drawings reveal a low-slung edifice of three floors, with plenty of windows.
Facilities to be included in the Satellite Union include a restaurant and snack bar area, dining room, book and sundries store, branch library, information desk, check casing service, lounges and browsing room, art display facilities and a multipurpose room for group meetings (capacity, 150 persons).
Construction of the Satellite Union as planned will mean a rise of about $6.50 in student activity fees per semester. That's a healthy
jump, but the new Union seems to be worth the price.
This boost in fees has been an unofficial secret, perhaps not intentionally kept from the ears of the students. The majority of KU students, however, have never been asked whether they are interested in paying that much extra money each semester.
Certain complaints have also been raised concerning the location of the Satellite Union, near Allen Field House. Most KU students were never asked about that, either.
In spite of these two stumbling-blocks, right now the smartest move would be to rush full-speed ahead with construction.
Construction costs are jumping about one per cent per month. Preliminary expenses such as electrical service and steam lines and architect's fees have already been doled out. Few question the immediacy of the need for the new building.
In the future, when increases in student fees are considered, I believe the students should be given a voice in a University-wide referendum. But it's too late for that now.
You and I can like it or leave it. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that we are going to embarass ourselves by liking this new Union.
Joanna K. Wiebe
Heart throbs
By MIKE SHEARER Arts & Reviews Editor
The doctor's palms went wet with sweat. His left eye began to twitch violently. He scribbled furiously in his notebook.
"Yes, it's true," said his patient, an emotional young woman. "I love him! I love Spiro T. Agnew!"
"Now be calm, Miss Twiddlebomb, be calm. There's no reason to panic. Why anyone could love . . . I mean there is no reason why you shouldn't . . . Er, just when did you start falling in . . . love . . . with the Vice-President?"
"Oh, it was his speech in New Orleans this week. He said all of us moratorium supporters had been 'encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.' Then he attributed opposition to the war to a 'spirit of national masochism' and said that 'hard-core dissidents and professional anarchists' are planning 'wilder, more violent' demonstrations next month..."
"Go on," encouraged the scribbling doctor.
"Well, then he said, 'The young, at the zenith of physical power and sensitivity, overwhelm themselves with drugs and artificial stimulants. Most do not care to be reminded that the leaders of the moratorium refused to disassociate themselves from the objective enunciated by the enemy in Hanoi.' The man is a perfect idiot!"
The doctor scurried through the pages of several texts on psychosis.
"He's an absolute drip," she continued. "He just escapes all sanity and reason. I LOVE HIM!" Then she broke into song:
"He's not much for looks and no hero out of books is my man. Two or three girls has he that
he likes as well as me but I love him. Oh, my man I love him so. He'll never know. All my life is just despair, but I don't care. . . ."
"Miss Twiddlebomb, please don't torture yourself this way," interrupted the doctor.
"At last," shrieked the girl, "a MAN. A man I can hate enough to love!"
"Just what are your views on the Vietnam war and on the moratorium?" asked the perplexed doctor.
"I, sir," said she, "am a devout pacist. I say with Edna St. Vincent Millay, 'I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death. I am not on his pay-roll.' I favor moratoriuming the president into ending the war, preferably by lunch tomorrow! And I love Spiro. . .."
She stopped drawing hearts around the penciled "I Love Spiro" on her notebook, and began weeping violently.
"Here, here," console the doctor, patting her on her heaving back.
Then glancing away, he murmured to himself, "Why not Dick Nixon, why not Lyndon Johnson, why not Hubert Humphrey? Oh, fate, you are a cruel master."
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN An All-American college newspaper
Kansan Telephone Numbers
Newsroom - UN 4-3646 Business Office - UN 4-4358 Published at the University of Kansas daily during the academic year except holidays and examination periods. Mall subscription rates: $6 a semester, $10 a year. Second class payment paid at Lawrence, Kan. 60044. Accommodations, goods, services and employment advertised offered by Lawrence University in international origin. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of Kansas or the State Board of Regents.
Readers' write M-Day retrospect
To the editor;
I am appalled by the apathy that the good citizens of Lawrence demonstrated toward the Moratorium of Oct. 15. A town such as Lawrence whose life is so closely bound up with the existence of the University can and ought to be expected to be concerned for the lives of its members. The good citizens of Lawrence, if anything, show concern only for their pocketbooks of the present day. They seem to show no concern for the future, especially in terms of the future of the University students.
The Moratorium of Oct. 15 was a perfect opportunity for this community to demonstrate its concern with and involvement in the life of the University. Those students who demonstrated in the Moratorium are an integral part of the University and of the community, and their concern for the future of this country, of this community, and of this University is a passionate one: one which is morally justified because it values the existence of peace and love for all mankind more than it values the security of the pocketbook and profession.
I hope that the citizens of Lawrence who are apathetic toward war, who are unconcerned about the sacrifices that the demonstrators are willing to make in order to secure peace for our world, who are angry with the demonstrators for not being militaristic, examine themselves and their lives for a morality that is finer than that which the demonstrators for the Moratorium possess. I doubt that they will be able to find one.
Micheline E. Andrews Dodge City graduate student
To the editor:
I wish to clarify a statement which I was reported to have made concerning the Moratorium. I was misquoted and possibly misinterpreted concerning my views on the war in Vietnam. I happened to have been passing the open mike and failed to stop, whereupon I was interviewed and asked why I had shown such apparent disinterest. I commented that I didn't feel the Moratorium would have any effect on the war since Nixon had previously stated that his views would not be affected by mass demonstrations. Having had a brother serve in Vietnam and many friends over there now, I am anything but disinterested in the war but feel that there are more effective and positive ways of expressing my concern in this matter.
Mary Lou Messman Wichita sophomore
Off the wire
By United Press International
WASHINGTON—William J. Sullivan, an assistant FBI director, declared the New Left is trying to destroy society: "The violent exhortations of its leaders and the terroristic acts of its adherents have clearly demonstrated that the New Left is a revolutionary, negative, minority force dedicated to the total destruction of our traditions, our democratic concepts and—in truth—our open society itself."
- * *
TOKYO—Former Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, here on a business trip, remarked that moratorium day was "one of the impressive days" in his life.
"I supported very strongly M-Day and the march was a useful exercise of democracy the American citizen enjoys," he said. * * *
SAN PEDRO, Calif—Jiri Vokrovalik, 26, a Czech sailor who jumped ship from a freighter and is jailed here while his request for political asylum is being considered, explained his motivation: "I plan my freedom nine years. I know of what it is, the United States, from my history book and from my radio. I know it is good place where people have liberty.
"I learn how not to be free is. I am in square when tanks come, many people die. I have only my hands. I cannot fight tanks with my hands."
GRIFF AND THE UNICORN
Griff & the Unicorn, Copyright, 1969,
University Daily Kansan.