4
Thursday, October 15, 1970
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment
Listening, Great Pumpkin?
Dear Great Pumpkin.
It isn't my usual practice to write letters to the Great Pumpkin. My annual letter is usually written in mid-December and addressed to Santa and the other children, right deviation from tradition may be defensible.
Given the current state of affairs, Christmas may very well be declared irrelevant this year, and the holiday will surely come in for more criticism than the usual charge of commercialism. It may even be declared a manifestation of Pig Amerika, and Christmas trees will be fair game for firebombs. So just to be on the safe side, I'll get my licks in while the relevancy-mongers still consider Halloween too trivial to be bothered with.
Well, Great Pumpkin, it's been quite a year and it looks to be getting even worse. People don't ask each other "Do you think there'll be anything anymore. The popular question is 'When?'
So before I get down to my list of non-negotiate demands, I'd like to suggest that you borrow a little of the "peace and good will" from the Christmas season (if it can be spared) and try to incorporate it into Halloween. Maybe if all your holiday symbols got together, you might be able to distribute that Chrismas-y feeling throughout the year.
And now for my list of desired goodies:
1. A dictionary, please, of small to medium-
sized words such as "respect," "common sense," "laugh" and "dignity" for Spiro Agnew, with a suggestion that he use it freely to fill the holes in his logic.
2. An intelligent, perceptive, obviously deeply thoughted thought, to be widely quoted and attained.
3. One-year scholarships to any state
college or universityansas or
each subsequent board of trustees.
5. A muzzle for Reynolds Shultz
4. Extra fans for Sam Goldberg, so that he can count how many semesters he's been in. See p. 279.
6. This last request is selfish, I know. But I ask that there be a completely fair, objective, honest and intelligent American press. You must realize, Great Pumpkin, that this calls for a completely fair, objective, honest and intelligent American public.
If my requests are too difficult to fulfill by Halloween, I will understand, and I promise not to picket your pumpkin patch. But I do hope you will give them every consideration, and if you're in my neighborhood on the witching night, please feel free to stop in.
Great Pumpkin, do you believe in Santa Claus?
Tours truly,
—Cass Peterso
Athletics: Target For Radical Left
In the course of its decision on the appeal of decathlon performer Sam Goldberg, the appellate division of the KU Judiciary has affirmed that all members of the university community, and not only students, have rights which should be upheld and protected.
Assistant Editor
The opinion, which was handed down last week, reversed a June order of a special hearing panel. It said that panel had exceeded the authority vested in the judiciary in its order to the Athletic Department to reinstate Goldberg on the track squad.
From the time of his removal from the squad in May, Goldberg sought to garner support for his case, by making a cause through a rather dramatic public relations campaign.
But it was revealed that Goldberg has been in and out of junior colleges since 1961, that he had no eligibility left when he enrolled at KU last year, that he was not now enrolled at KU. He was on call as a member of the track squad because of allure and audulent representation of his scholastic status.
Building on the failure of his effort in the University Judiciary, Goldberg has appointed himself "minister of sports and physical education" for the Youth International Party
And one of Goldberg's supporters, George Kimball, candidate for sheriff of Douglas County, has threatened a "total disruption" of an important athletic event at KU this year if the decision of the Judiciary appellate board is not reversed.
Aside from its tragicomic aspects, the Goldberg affair offers an insight into what has
become obvious—that athletics has become a new target for many on the radical left. Its basis is discipline, training, and competition, so the athlete-yielded identity symbol of the opposition to Leftists.
The University Judiciary asserted in its opinion that the KU court system "has no jurisdiction to order a member of the university community, prospectively, to do or refrain from doing so which are legitimately within the scope of that person's individual or professional discretion."
At the same time, the Judiciary proclaimed its right to "order the reinstatement of the status of a defendant" could include reinstatement of an athlete dismissed for reasons of race, religion, or personal discretion.
In short, the opinion seemed to endorse the undeniable fact that a coach should be able to control his team, while reassuring those who fear the arbitrary dismissal of an athlete for reasons. In the highly unlikely event that the latter should occur, there is a means for redress.
But the favorable ruling of the University Judiciary also has implications in its confirming the rights of coaches, as well as other members of the university community, to exercise some form of necessary professional discretion and authority—rights which must be endorsed and upheld.
In its entirety, the Goldberg affair may represent a threat to the principles upon which any athletic program is based.
—Rob Womack
RICHARD LOUV COLUMN
"Sam asked Pa Howard can I go?
Pa said there only one place I know.
Howl just me quick man I got to run.
Howl just me quick man I got to run.
That way, down Highway 61.
Bob Dylan
If you want to be a journalist you know you have to see it with your own eyes and then go back to your books. Journalism is an excuse for experience, and what is most important is that you see. Otherwise what you write later is a second-hand lie.
Recently felt the need to educate myself, so I left school for a few days, short enough time not to lose it. Hitchkiled to Minnesota, up through the cold, Indian Summer hills. Up on Highway 61.
And if America is to be seen at all, it won't be seen in the university, in books or on television. America is outside our windows and I never knew she was so easy to find. If I spent more time at this kind of search I might come finally to be friends with my country.
The highways are the most democratic areas in the nation. You can find almost anyone up on Highway 61, and it is nothing new to go looking there, but it is for me, and I want to put it down, here, before it moves on . . .
Consider these true visions of the road to Minnesota
Young farmer in a '65 Chevy with a jacked-up back roars on. Door flies open and you get in. Between the bucket seats is a rolled-up bell seat and holder with C4. 158, mount up, at an angle like the gear. You can slide it off,升 up, off the highway leaving a trail of gun-barnel blue smoke.
"Where you going?" he asks, hand on the saddle horn, gear shifting.
"Minnesota. But for now, I35."
"Sorry, Goin' to Topica. This here's the same turniple entrance for Topeka and K.C." He slams to a ston.
"Well, thanks anyway," you say, and get out quick.
"Yep." Door stairs and you stand in the blue smoke as he screaches off, pop the clutch and whinies around the curve onto the turnip.
A middle-aged businessman in a Buick who right away starts shaking his head, kickerers. You ride to the end of the bridge, then say, "Excuse me."
Another farmer in a quiet new Pontiac. He has mud on his boots and doesn't say a word for 45 miles. Then he turns and asks, "You like country music?"
Next ride
"Sure."
And he turns the radio on, and sings along, "Oh D-L-V-O-R-E-Spelled heartbreak for me . . ." Another 25 miles without a word. Then he opens his mouth as he slews at a crossroads and labors out a short essay "This is it. Goodyde."
In return, you recite what seems like a masters thesis: "Thank you."
One of the two young men looks like Maynard on the old “Dobie Gillis Show,” with a little goatee and jot to go with it. The other has a shaved head and a tiny dee-bee shirt and both are wearing Marine boots. Good-hearted—you can sense that right away—and roaring and when an insult has gone too far, they saying good things to each other when an insult has gone too far. Maybe drummed out marine: “I didn’t want me and I didn’t want them.”
The other one, it turns out, is AWOL. There are hand-painted peace signs on the dashboard.
"We'll take you to Winona," they say, sitting back comfortable in the front seat. "We not a place else we're going."
Consider this picture of the two 18-year-old aging children, growing old without wisdom:
You stop at the little box house of the boy who's AWOL and his mother comes out. His mother, poor mother who is trying to look longer than her sagging belly and buggy eyes will permit, his mother has slumped and no husband, who sits on the porch and smiles a tired smile.
"You get, you hear?" she says it kindly. "The sheriff was here today looking for you. You get."
With the loud motor off, it is suddenly very quiet.
I bought you a mouse. More.
"I brought you money, Mom."
He pulls out a wad of bills and prizes them into her hand, and there she is. The money shown them she needs the money. Then she jams the bills back into bill pockets.
"Hell no! You need it where you're going."
He protests, he goes inside and watches from behind the screen door. "Please, Jerry. You get going before somebody sees you." The car starts and backs out of the driveway, leaving her there. "The guy is pushing the hoses further away." You still got some time, so you don't have to go to jail too long! But the car is moving faster, farther, and Jerry turns around and the distance grows into miles.
Wine is bought.
Must be careful, no licenses for either of them.
Hippie wine is damn good. Charging along. Roaring along, laughing at the marines and the road.
"Maybe I should go to Canada."
"Not going back, that's for sure. They'll break your back if they can."
"We got screwed up one day. Dropped LSD and thought the whole world was funny. Went down to the recruiting station and joined up."
They'll break your mind for sure." Jerry tells Maynard to slow down. He says it gently, taking care of him.
"How did you guys ever join the Marines?"
Says Maynard, "My wife got killed in a car crash. Married real young. Had a beautiful little Stingray. Total it."
"Slow down," says Jerry, tipping the bottle, "We want to get him to Winona."
The junior says he lives without fear. He's a good family man, he said, and he wishes you good luck and God's Grace.
Then there's the 28-year old jantor with four children who very sincerely believes that he's seen angels.
"I'm a Seventh-day Adventist, and I used to be an atheist. Once, I was in church out hand balllets and this little ballad in a brown suit wouldn't take one. He looked afraid when I tried to give him a cut, and turned and went up to the balcony. Right then a voice came out from nowhere, a voice full of concern, that said to me, 'Tom, that's an odd story.' We have to find out about everything, so I followed the little man upstairs, and later the service I was looking at him and he looked at me and then suddenly, he just wasn't there. He . . . disappeared."
"a hippie bait." You want to turn around and say to them, "Look, I'm not a hippie! I'm an Okie from Muskegan, I am Christian from the hippies, I'm a Jew from KU. But there aren't any such things as hippies, rednecks, Jews, or Christians. Or niggers. Or white skim!"
And you stop at a smokey truck stop, the only light in miles. All the eyes turn from their coffee and look at you. The talking stops. You sit down with your back to them and try to smooth down your windblowers. They look at you and look still. You feel the eyes. Wall sign above cash register: "Stomp Out."
You want to tell them you like truck drivers and would even like to drive trucks sometimes. But you eat up quick and back head to the pins to get out of the way. Only prove the world is round: there is no up or down, Let me high five. Only. You stick out your thumb and try to catch one going by.
You get down in the little places, far out, far down, clear into the sapphire of the nation, within the green innards of America, off Highway 51. You enter the green innards of America—the greasy gas station. Like a pimple in the pines, with an stench to store next door. The lonesome gray attendant, who chews a cigar and has gas himself. Under the big Minnesota hills he sits and surveys his shirt. He takes a seat on a spit stain on his shirt. You ask directions and he doesn't move at the end. At least he's alive. And, like an Egyptian pharaoh, he slowly raises his monkey wrench scooper and points down the road.
And you're back on the road again, trying to get back home. Watching the people go by in their metal cases, crashing into each other. Well, hell, you say, we've got the same feelings, redneck and me. The old man, and we're in a dizzy cycle. We should have known that long. Maybe we think, maybe we'll be able to talk someday, redneck and me. May be about cars. Angels or devils, which we both fear the same.
I put these things down now because they seem to say something about America on the highway through the dark hills of her youth, moving faster through the night, chased by her past and playing in the future, contemplating the total freedom of self destruction. The culture, a hill, a hill, drinking Coors and eating popcorn, and America flashes by without any headlights, moving like mad up on high Highway 61.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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By Sokoloff
"Copyright 1970, University Daily Kansan.
LETTERS
I read with dismay Bot Womack's editorial attacking Bill Ebert and proclaiming the dangers of criticizing the government, reasoning, that Ebert's statements give support to the "opposite pole," sounds much like the hawkish rationale that to him he should lend "aid and comfort" to the enemy. Bill Ebert is not only right in what he says, but is right also in saying it. I agree with problems deals with problems only after a crisis level has been reached.
To the Editor:
Look at the two shooting deaths this summer. The citizens of Lawrence had long been aware that the ill-conceived Department of Justice created severe leadership and morale problems within city law enforcement agencies, yet nothing was done to improve the situation until two needles touched much local turmoil had occurred
And, unfortunately, the same kind of governmental foot-dragging resulted in a student's being burned nearly to death in a fire that lasted weeks ago. Both the population and the city government had long been cognizant of the deplorable conditions existing in some newer housing and much older housing, but it was done until after the Remit, when inspections that did result could be only described as "too little."
The problems of administrative apathy and incompetence which beset local government from those of its federal counterpart, but borders on the criminal for Womack to call for a “hands-off” policy in trying to deal with the situation. Citizens will feel that their heads in the sand and ignore many wrongs, but they will not
make those wrong disappear. If Bill Ebert is guilty of intensifying local polarization in his attempts to deal with local issues, so be it. Progress and change are seldom necessary for the polarization and shaking of the status quo. For him to remain silent in the face of obvious wrong is to give his facet approval to the perpetration of that wrong. Bill Ebert is applauded for saying things which certain need to be said.
too late." Much of the older housing near the university continues to operate in open relation of state law.
Richard Larimore Wellington Senior
Like Cracking An Egg?
To the Editor:
Laws? Which ones are good and which ones are bad? Does society have the right to write and enforce laws that may be against the beliefs of a person or a minority group? Does anyone really know what is right or wrong, what is good or bad?
These questions came into my mind while I read the article, 'Another View on Abortion,' by Cass Peterson. I agree with her that abortion shouldn't give birth to children and abortions don't want to give birth to the child which they carry. Wow! Do you bear it? Justice will only multiply and compound the injury. Doctors say that the fetus is capable of pain and哭. Won't the feelings set in before birth cause child? If the child is born, will he receive love, or just sympathy?
Usually he will never learn the true meaning of love and will not be able to give love.
Having an abortion performed is no different from cracking an egg or killing a cow who is a few months along in her gestation period for a calf.
So you see an abortion can be good or bad in a "sense." But one law should be left up to the individual and not so good. Laws which force women to abort are unjustified.
Abert L. Schendel
Wellsville Junior