4
Tuesday, October 26, 1971
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Kansas Staff Photo by HANK YOUNG
The Gaslight and the Law
County Attorney Mike Elwell, at the insistence of Atty. Gen. Vern Miller, is filing suit to close the Gaslight Tavern.
The logic of the move, according to the authorities, is that the Gaslight is the scene for much of the drug purchases going on in the city.
If we are to assume this is anything but the next move in a series of selective harassment techniques employed by Miller and Elwell then they must prove a similar zeal for closing businesses in other cities that are the alleged scene for drug traffic—and be a damn sight more specific in factual evidence used proving the frequency of sales from a business such as the Gaslight.
In fact, to date Miller has yet to exert the same sort of pressure anywhere else in the state—except here in closing the Rock Chalk Cafe by "agreement."
Miller says his agents have made drug purchases at the Gaslight in the months of June, July, August and September.
I daresay, that if Miller's men
have anything on the ball they could make just as many purchases at the Kansas Union, probably more. We can all assume that Frank Burge wouldn't be hauled into court to see the student union closed by Msrsr. Elwell and Miller.
It is, then, an issue of selective enforcement.
In the Soviet Union, rather than shooting dissenters outright, they are declared insane.
In Kansas, rather than taking in a ax crew and leveling the Gaslight, Miller hides behind executive pressure and "legal action."
In both cases, the rights of the individual under the spirit of the law have been abridged.
The situation becomes particularly ludicrous if Miller wants us to take his mouthings about fair play under the law seriously.
Unfortunately, the harassment of the Gaslight probably won't raise many eyes here or anywhere else, and that is exactly what Miller is betting on.
—Tom Slaughter
Lawrence Is American
Lawrence has been nominated to be an All-American city.
Lawrence, home of drug-crazed hippies, revolutionaries, long-haired college students, disaffected and disillusioned blacks and Indians, hard hats, intellectuals, rednecks and conservative businessmen, has been nominated to be an All-American city.
Lawrence, scene of pre-dawn drug raids, political demonstrations, political counter-demonstrations, strikes, marches, racial riots, firebombings, ordinary bombings, sniping and counter-sniping, has been nominated to be an All-American city.
Lawrence is American. It is a microcosm of just about everything that is troubling the America of the 1970s. To be sure, we don't have clogged freeways, but the city government (appropriately quartered in a bank) is working on that. We don't have much of a pollution problem yet, but Co-op is working on that.
And, to be fair, one should note
that Lawrence's problems have flared into violence only sporadically, but that is the pattern all across America. Lawrence does have many good qualities, just as America has many good qualities. Lawrence is usually peaceful, usually beautiful and usually a friendly town to live in. Lawrence is American.
Lawrence has a counter culture busy at reform. Lawrence has a city government which is sometimes busy at reform. Lawrence has a big university on a hill which is also sometimes busy at reform. Lawrence is America.
If all-American means all-of-America, good and bad, then Lawrence should win the contest hands down. And after we've won, we can tell visitors to our fair city: "This is Lawrence. This is America."
And our great grandchildren will say: "And then there was Lawrence. And then there was America."
—Pat K. Malone
Generation Gap Sacrifices Made Not Recognized
I think often these days of a movie Max Opulph made in 1949, it was called "The Reckless Moment", and it turns up unobviously on late TV. (Stephen Scheuer's guide to late shows gives it 3% stars.)
The plot is basic melodrama. A girl was innocently involved with a man suspiciously killed. It would look bad if this came out. The girl's mother starts paying a blackmiller to make sure it does not come out. One thing leads to another—determined resistance to accidental death; a second blackmiller stepping in for the dead one by force; a third blackmiller. It is the domino theory of making bargains with the devil.
What gives the movie its eerie power is the use of all the clichés from kindly movie families in the Forties--alert pattering Grandpa, Kid Brother with his head under a car hood, dutiful Mother who writes comforting letters to
Garry Wills
salesmen, Father out on the road;
Christmas shopping and the decorated tree,
a black-mammary Maid grumply loving and loved, friendly tradesmen, a town where everyone knows everyone can be charged, even at the soda shop.
But Opulph, having set up the situation, makes each friendly face a menace. Everyone knows too much about Mother's business, intrudes into her new dark world of surreptite meetings and inexplicable payments. The women, blackmailer to dinner, and Kid Brother, on him for help with the carburter. The Maid wants to mother Mother, and Grandpa to father her; and the one thing worse than writing to Father would be for Father to come home. The worm has entered into Ozzie-and-maude and mauds its gris mucrabire, his gris mucrabire, his gris mucrabire becomes hypocritical fencing, and sincerity a pretense. It all took was
one murder to bring the make-believe movie family to life, with all the unintentionally murderous make-believe of our everyday routine.
The family could not recognize itself, back in the Forties, without the plot-gimmick thrown in as catalyst. But now, with so much being written about Middle America's discontent, this One-Eyed Family. It is the place where people are cut off from other, for the sake of each other. A place of great love, across abysss. In the movie, the Mother is acting to save the family; but she has gone on to make the family sinister; its open solicitude is suffocating. Soon her nerves are all raweed into with doing good. While saving the family, she becomes mysterious to it, snapping and barking. She hide more, the harder she grows, until they threaten them, while they threaten and exasperate her. A familiar near-
hysteria invades her manner—the hurt
mute anger of virtue too long on the
stretch, self-conscious and
unrecognized.
What are we getting this year that we did not receive last year? I see no roofs on the lots to protect me. What do we cars to the end of the lots, nor do I use food service supplied for us weary mile walkers. Why the road? What are we getting or paying for; that our $10 did not suffice?
Last year I paid $10 for an
Alumni Place Sticker. This year I
paid $10 for an 'S zones
permit I permit this summer
this summer asking the reason
for this ridiculous 130 per cent
receipt, but did not receive a reply.
I am inquiring as to the reason for the parking permit increase, due as soon as the price freeze is settled.
The movie ends with an ironic tree-side Christmas scene. The menacing blackmailer has been removed; but all menacing elements in the place are still with lies and pain. The scene seems to be what the generation gap is all about—the horror of sacrifices made but not recognized, love that must be understood, something else for each other except tell them truth. All the love of the modern family is a secret goodness, that somehow curdles in the dark; a series of good stories in the dark, sacrifices offered, where hurt.
What one side felt as an obisence, the other took as a demand. It is a boxing match of people hitting, in a flurry of confusion, where they only meant to kiss—a few pecks and ducking attempts at hugging that become collisions and climches, one hits in earnest out of love's stunned needs.
Those who talk gibbly of "the generation gap" are describing what is happening in the United States. And no political program or single remedy can accomplish its untangling.
Readers Respond
Copyright, 1971 Universal Press Syndicate
★★
Ellsworth; Kansan; Parking...
David Healy,
Lincoln, Kan.
Junior and
Ellsworth resident
Ellsworth
To the Editor:
I would like to draw your attention to an error in the Wednesday (October 20, 1971) Kansan concerning the article "the articles and Seek Solution to Ellsworth's Problems." Included in the article was the following: "One problem that better communication is formation of a hall government that involves people and more ideas. The government could be in a position to handle crises."
If Ellsworth Hall did not have a student government, this would have been a good suggestion. It also makes it more likely that student government and has had it for over six weeks! I am also bewerded as to how Ellsworth Hall works, but it involves more people and more ideas than it already has. The present form of government is the system in which you will) based on the concept of one resident艾利和 open and to all Ellsworth residents. The council meets once every week. Its agenda is non-restricted and the floor is open to any proposal or issue which any resident desires.
If anyone could suggest a more open and encompassing form of government, I can assure you it would give it all due consideration.
To the Editor:
Parking...
The lots are already there. They certainly do not require tuition to protect them, and they ports to keep them from sinking. Oh, but 'O zone was starred this summer. Big deal. Where does it sit?
And alas, 'X' zone was extended north. Big deal. Not insist for alumni at football for students. For students parking for classes.
And even more absurd is the price raise difference between one-camp and off-camp. The students in one camp will pay $15, an increase of 50 per cent, but the students off-camp are required for some innate skills.
Why is there this penalty for living off campus? We desire the same thing—that is, one parking lot. So why are longer, no rocker, no duster, no nothing—yet we are penalized. So, why the ridiculous increase in the first place, and yet no less than a uniform ridiculous increase.
By the by, I have written
President Nixon before and
received a reply, but in writing
the university, I received none.
Terry Brecheiser Garnett junior
★★
Kansan . . .
To the Editor:
After I read Thursday's response to the Kansan controversy, I felt really down. It bothered me to see such a vain avian toward the Kansan. But my depression didn't last long.
When I got back to my apartment, I found that I had received a personal letter from a member of the family. I asked for a favorable comment I made in my previous letter to the Kansan. Now I would like to thank him: Thank you, sir, for your help in this world (in a land and a campus) full of hypocritical and mercenary people, there are those who are thoughtful enough to express appreciation for even small things.
My spirits were lifted even further when, in Friday's Kansan, I read of the fine effort of Greg Cooper, Bill McMurray, and others to restore the money cut from the UDK allocation. For that reason, I defended the defense of the Kansan; it is beautiful to know that I not.
I know that more students appreciate and respect the Kanans, I have I speak with them; I urged them then, and I urge them now, to express this publicity in one form or another.
Steve Bleau, Latham, N.Y., sophomore
★★
Bible . . .
To the Editor
A copy to Joe Bullard (Kansas City) must be returned. During the past weeks I have been reading the comments of those who librarians Lib and its supposed right to exist.
supposed right to death.
I have seen religion attacked as being a "pernicious influence," and finally Christ himself.
proclaimed as a subversive activist in the 1960s, defendable between people. In response to this folly I would like to explain to Joe and others, who base their remarks about Joe's situation on lack of understanding of both the circumstance and occurrence of thinking such as your own that has been the corruptive and erosive influence on our society and our student experience.
Let me remind you Joe, that the primary reason this country blossomed to greatness was
because our predecessors were united under God.
Most of them were industrious, hard working people who had old fashioned ideas about following trends, "countecs numbers" as you say, they trusted God to determine what is right and what is wrong. As America grows older many like yourself are challenging God's word had fabricating your own self-centered desires.
Michael Hein, Merriam senior
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y.
(LNS)—Mount Vernon, N.Y. is one of the many suburban communities located in super-
city neighborhoods of New York City. It has now become the first city in America to install low-light-level cameras for 24 hour a day surveillance of black and other oppressed people down-town section of the city.
These low-light-level cameras were first developed for military use in Vietnam in the early 1970s and are now used in America in the early 1970s as an experimental surveillance system. The federal government also installed—saying that they will be evaluating it very quickly—that the Vernon police will conduct a week-by-week survey of so-called crime statistics" to determine crimes" to determine a deterent.
Liberation News Service 1984 In 1971
It is common knowledge that the city of Mt. Vernon is separated along racial lines. The New Haven railroad tracks separates it into the north-side and the south-side being predominately white and south-side being predominately black.
Now, the first surveillance camera is positioned on the corner lightpile of 1st Street and the dark blue line divides the dark blue and white communities. The second camera is located on the corner lightpile of 2nd Street and the lightpile of 3rd Street—right inside the black community. In this particular area, black people live in run-down apartments and businesses. The surveillance camera will aid the police in protecting their property and keeping people safe.
Mounted on motor driven turrets, one block apart, two 29 pound cameras peer down from the back of a building sidewalks and stores. They are operated by remote control from the nearby police department a few feet away. The zoom lenses capable of penetrating near total darkness with a viewing range of more than 160 degrees approximately 360 degrees.
Letters to the editor should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 500 words. All letters are subordinated according to space limitations and the editor's judgment. Students must provide their name, year in school and home town; facial features; name and position; others must provide their name and address.
Pictures are transmitted to the police department and video-tape machines make a complete camera. If you want a photo camera, Also, it has been noted that the zoom lenses might possibly be used for lip-reading.
Letters Policy
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