PAGE SIX
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 1943
Physical Conditioning Plan Could Be Of More Value Under Broader Program
The conditioning program inaugurated this year, whereby all University men subject to service under the United States flag should take a conditioning course to make them fitter for the strenuous physical demands of the fighting forces, is indeed a good plan and a constructive aid to the war program. Near the end of the first year of this broad program, however, it is well to reconsider its construction and the effectiveness of the conditioning classes as outlined.
Students who have taken conditioning in these classes have offered constructive criticism of the plan, and usually the criticism has been a serious effort to make the program of more equal benefit to every student. Many men complain that there is no uniform plan for teaching the different classes, and that the classes vary in strictness, value, and difficulty according to the individual instructor. This is often true in most departments and in many classes, but in a conditioning program there seems to be more need for uniformity. In the future, if a strict program were outlined so that instructors would follow the same line of work, the classes would be of more value.
It is true that Robinson gymnasium and the physical education department are overcrowded. This required conditioning program has jumped the department enrollment until adequate facilities are not available. A department giving such valuable training could well be provided with more funds in order to build up the teaching staff and the building and equipment facilities.
Students complain that the cut system has been lax, and that the ruling that excessive cuts will be penalized by expulsion or loss of grade points is not being carefully administered. Unless such a rule is going to be followed and unless the training program is going to be enforced so that students will receive the greatest advantage, what is the use of having it? It might be that many students do not fully understand the cut system and the rulings governing too many cuts, but these points should be made clear and then enforced. Such a program as conditioning is easily taken too lightly unless the value and the purpose of such a course are explained and the class work directed toward those ends.
The physical education department is performing a real service by preparing men in advance to meet the requirements of the armed forces, but what a greater service could be given to both the forces and the individual men if some of the weaknesses could be eliminated.
Fantastic Ideas May Be Real In Scientific Post-War World
The time, "After the War"; the place, Spifftown, Central USA; the characters, John and Mary Smith and their son, Jack (John, Jr.). Jack is offering all the best arguments he can think of for having the "family conveyance" for the evening for a run into the "city" for an evening with his girl.
After a lecture on being careful and not getting in too late, Jack is given the permission he seeks, and he is off on the 700-or-so miles
Just Wondering
If it is entirely by accident that 100 inferred sailors in Argentina, all former members of the German pocket-battleship Graf Spee, have been able to escape from prison in that Latin country.
to Chicago in the family auto-plane.
--in gaps in the hedges so the wings will carry on the line of the hedge, or by putting fish nets woven with vegetation or colored cloth over them. A class in camouflage at the University has constructed a portable dummy bolder as a possibility for hiding machine gun nests or observation towers. The bolder made by throwing gunny sacks soaked in wet plaster over a framework of twigs.
Following a short jaunt down the highway, Jack takes off from the landing strip beside the roadway, and rises to the height specified for civilian travel. That limit to prevent conflict with larger cargo and transportation ships, and with military craft.
Jack's father, John, is a doctor, one individual in a huge government-sponsored system of socialized medicine. As a student before the war and as a young doctor during the war, he was strongly opposed to any system of organized "free medicine." But when it started, and he saw its effectiveness in operation, he changed his mind.
After arriving in Chicago, Jack finds that his date is not quite ready, so he drops in on his grandparents. His grandfather is retired and is living comfortably with his wife. The couple is supported by a government-sponsored system of social security.
Jack and his grandfather discuss the policies of the World Court, and the recent settling of a problem begun by a country with aggressive ambitions. Several of the small armies and navies maintained by each country had been grouped near the country in question, and their mere presence had sufficed to induce a quiet settlement.
Jack picks up his girl, and after seeing a show, takes her for a flight. In the course of events, he gets a little out of the altitude limits, and an air-policeman flies nearby and reminds him to be more careful. Almost all policing is on a federal basis, because transportation and the socialistic form of government have practically erased state lines. Transportation and international government have also tended to "make the world smaller" and to weld nations together.
After taking his girl-friend home, Jack returns to Spifletown, lands on the strip beside the highway lighted by its own phosphorescent glow, and lets himself in the back way. He sneaks a synthetic food tablet from the electronic refrigerator—and so to bed!-F.A.
Student Paper of THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence, Kansas
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
1
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor-in-Chief ... Virginia Tieman
Editorial Associates ... Don Keown, Jimmy
Gunn, Maurice Barker
A slip of the tongue: Jack McCoy called Clay Hedrick Wednesday night. "My car won't start," Jack said desperately. "Can you get out here after us?" Clay took account of the country road Jack directed him to, the "won't start" instead of "stalled" as well as "us"—and a fiendish idea developed in his mind.
He told Mrs. Kraemer, Phil Delt housemother, that he was going for a little ride in the country and would she like to go along.
The rescue squad found the right road and the evacuees were evacuated. The trip home was a silent one.
Never complain—it's unhealthy: Leo Goertz, a Battenfeld resident last semester, came back over the weekend. After dinner he herded the fellows around the phonograph to listen to a recording of his voice. Goertz is really quite a vocalist—on the classical side.
The audience was doing well with its appreciative expression until Bob North burst in.
"Where in hell did we get that record? What do you guys mean wasting our money on such trash!" he exclaimed.
To the stars through difficulty: With all the trouble the Chi O's allegedly have in their beauty preparation it's one of life's mysteries how the chapter manages to put up any appearance on the hill at all.
First is was Jean Cody shampooing her hair with Energine in an absent-minded moment. Now its Georgia Ferrel. She tried two unsuccessful suds last time before she realized that she was using finger nail polish remover.
Helen Launched It, Too Camouflage Art
Bv JEAN JONES
The Greeks worked ten long years to crash the gates of Troy and recover their precious Helen. When going seemed the roughest, a soldier, with an eye to the future, conceived the idea of not only getting the army into the city but having the Trojans carry it, hidden in a wooden horse, through the gates. Since then, camouflage has been an important weapon when the question at hand involves fool-
Today, when hiding from Hitler and Hirohito has become a complex game of "Survival of the Fittest," military strategists have turned to camouflage to prevent wholesale destruction of lives and armament. The engineers' corps of the army, navy, and marines, the United States camouflage headquarters at Ft. Belvoir, Va., the Office of Civilian Defense, and the Pratt Institute in New York are devising new methods every day of making the enemy think he sees things he doesn't. Artists, engineers, psychologists, photographers, and military strategists are working together to conceal military and industrial targets.
On the battlefield, where time is at a premium, the soldier must use his ingenuity to be his own camouflage. If caught suddenly in street fighting, he may daub grease on his face, cover himself with sackcloth to make his body blend into the shadows, or fall into a pile of debris.
If the soldier has time to put on a sipper's suit, he can make himself invisible from 30 feet away. The green and pinkish-brown of the mottled camouflage garment blend into the background of green trees, shadow, and bright sunlight.
The problem of concealing equipment is difficult. Students of camouflage advocate building collapsible barm on the battlefield to conceal anti-aircraft battery. They propose hiding planes by parking them
In some cases, whole army camps can be hidden. Camp Murphy. in Hobe Sound, Fla., a training center for the signal corps, scattered over a nine mile area, is situated in a dense tropical spot on the edge of the Everglade mountains. Vegetation is thick and no tree or shrub was removed unnecessarily. The buildings, facing every direction, are painted green and are so expertly concealed that a man could walk through the camp unaware he was near a building until he bumped into it. Since the signal corps needs no ground for maneuvers, no white sand drill grounds reveal the camp to enemy raiders.
An air base in New Jersey is being built to resemble a farm community. Even the church steeple harboring the parachute tower and the sections of landing field sowed with grass look like "the real McCoy" from above.
H 70 FRI
Decoy guns and planes are used to inveigle the enemy into wasting ammunition and to make him think the Allies have more equipment
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