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Monday, November 16..1970
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Hill's Publicity Out of Proportion
Maybe the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce should consider Phil Hill and George Kimball for positions in the firm.
The town's two most prominent Yippies succeeded where the Chamber failed—they have again brought much of the energy.
The Boston Globe front-page headlined, "Kansas Fumes" over the accidental election of Hill as a justice of the peace; Time magazine featured Hill and Kimball in an article on sheriffs in America; and an American missionary in Peru wrote of the difficulty of being a citizen of the United States invulvans reading of Hill's election in their newspapers.
It is interesting to contrast the national ballyhoo and attitude of "you got what you deserved" with the lack of attention by the local press. Perhaps this is a good example of the manner in which news stories lose their true perspective as they move farther and farther from their original sources. Lawrence experienced this same phenomenon at the time of the Kansas Union fire last April.
Will any of the distant news media that gleefully played the story of Hill's election also convey the news that the Kansas legislature in effect abolished the office of justice of the peace for first and second class cities of the state, which includes Lawrence, during the last legislative session?
The new justice apparently believes that the establishment is now attempting to wipe out his office in New York.
If Hill hadn't been elected, there wouldn't have been the closer examination of that office now being undertaken by the Douglas County attorney and the state attorney general.
Along with the segment on Lawrence's hemp-picking industry, featured on CBS' "60 Minutes" last week, the election of Hill has probably caused shock waves of varying intensity throughout the country, as Americans wonder what is going on in that Midwestern city on the Kaw.
Actually, not all that much.
—Bob Womack
Even after having grown up absurd in a culture mea-
demands a certain measure of callousness from its
citizens, I was left agast at a news item I found sand-
ing. What happened to the midi controversy and a
T&GY in an area paper.
In the item, Dr. Bright A. Lowry, assistant professor of chemistry at Southern Methodist University, announced that Mexican yams were the world's largest source of sex hormones.
Thoughts on Stimulating Vegetable
The morality of the situation is staggering.
Dr. Lowry, pragmatist that he is, says, "A person needs certain basic knowledge of facts in science and technology at his fingertips to make intelligent decisions."
To think that I've been blundering through some 21 years with a complete aversion to anything even remotely resembling a yam—eating raw meat and hoping for the best.
Dieticians in high school cafeterias across the nation will be forced to alter their normal bill of fare—or face mass amour in that all-American bastion of puberty, the high school.
The effect this announcement will have on the food industry will only be rivaled by the Surgeon General's attack on cigarettes, and its repercussions on the smoking amalgam.
Yam ads will take their place next to alluring lingeries in the classifies of the movie-romance mags;
"GOLDEN LUSCIOUS YAMS. Two lbs. for 2
"GOLDEN LUSCIOUS YAMS. Two lbs. for 29 cents."
Off the supermarket shelves and into the streets,
where greasy little men in dark allex will whisper.
"Hey mister, my sister has fresh vams."
The whole sordid mess will rock the moral fiber of America.
We all should be worrying about the problem. I am.
—Tom Slaughter
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Telephoning Is Still A Chore
By HARVEY HASLER
Kansan Staff Writer
Vinland is a small farming community about 11 miles southeast of Lawrence. It has a telephone system that is about as old fashioned as "Mom's apple pie."
The area around Vinland is served by a small, privately owned firm called the Vinland Mutual Telephone Company. There is only one other like it in the state.
One resident calls the telephone system "unbelievable."
The phones require a person's ringing the operator and having her ring the party he needs to contact.
The phone lines themselves are run along fences,
In some instances there are as many as eight different parties on a line.
"... in some cases it is faster to just get in a car and drive to town than to try to get a call through."
The wire is often not insulated or is not connected to the poles (or trees) by proper insulators.
nailed to convenient trees and in some places are just hanging in brush and trees along the road.
There is only one operator and she opens the switchboard at six in the morning and closes it at nine in the evening. Any calls placed after this time are emergency calls.
And it is sometimes faster to just drive a car to town than to try to get a call through.
On June 23 a complaint was filed against the Vinland Mutual Telephone Company by several residents of the
Many times it is impossible to hear because of the static on the lines.
Vinland area, charging Vinland Mutual with insufficient, improper and inadequate telephone service
On September 22 a public hearing was held regarding the efficiency and sufficiency of the telephone service.
The Heart of Vinland's Exclusive Telephone System
... a small, antiquated switchboard that doesn't try to act like it
the efficiency and sufficiency of the telephone service. Noel W. Salisbury was appointed staff witness and made field investigations. He confirmed the complaint and enumerated 100 locations of code violations. In some instances, more than one violation was cited for the same location.
The evidence confirmed that the outside airtan pipe was in poor physical condition, and an order was issued permitting the Vinland Mutual Telephone Company to improve its system.
The order further stated that the telephone company should give evidence that it was financially able to immediately make the improvement indicated.
The Commission stated that in the event the telephone company was unable to adequately improve the telephone service, the territory should be declared open.
Old-Fashioned Crank Telephones
... a little difficult for left-handers
Telephone Wire Wraps And Twists Its Way Along Posts .. across the prairies of eastern Kansas to distant farms
Kansan Photos By Jim Hoffman
Vinland Mutual's Bare Telephone Wires Are Often Strung on Fence Posts or Trees
. . . yet they usually manage to get the messages through