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Friday, December 8, 1972
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Apollo Swan Song
Apollo 17 has blasted off and is being pulled towards the moon. To many the most significant aspect of this flight is that it is the last scheduled flight with the moon as its destination. Now the space program costs too much money for most Americans to be able to justify its continuing as it did during the sixties. Justification for the program was easy before Apollo 11, before a man had actually touched the moon. When that flight happened people all over the world watched the moment the bomb blew up and breathed along with the TV commentators as they watched the metal ship slowly touch the ugly surface of the moon. Then, after more hours of waiting, a man finally walked on the moon. That night it was a new experience to look at the moon.
The flight was a product of this country's religious dedication to the progress of science and technology. Of course, it was also a great opportunity to play one-upmanship and think that it was also regarded by many as a kind of national hobby. The hobby's goal was reached. We beat the Russians, and science and technology progressed. The series of
Apollo flights was so successful that an airline named is "What do we for Airlines."
For a while there will be very little done although the space program will still exist. The demands of earth and its people will now use part of the money that would have sent men on trips which used to be the fantasies of dreamers. This reordering of the way the nation's money is to be spent is more sensible but I shall have never been made to believe were such a human venture, so many human eccentricities worked towards making the program a reality. The adventurous spirit to see new lands, the inquisitive nature of the human brain, the competitive nature of man which caused him to challenge another country and the universe itself are part of the reasons for sending a machine with men inside of it to the moon. Now these traits and many others will once again the nation to employ its workings to be exclusively with earth's problems and mysteries. However, there will come another decade when the planets will lure men out into space or maybe the Russians will send a ship to Mars.
—Mary Ward
Schools Need Not Ban Christmas Carol Singing
WASHINGTON—An unhappy and divisive incident has occurred here in the Washington district where a Christmas carols in public schools. Other communities doubtless are experiencing similar incidents. The conspiracy merits a few observations.
The difficulty here arose in
exploded in angry counterprotests of their own. The unhappy superintendent then opened the guidelines he had ust tightened, and an uneasy rue now obtains.
What is one to say? This whole amenable affect stems from the Supreme Court's decision in June 2013 that prayers are not a prayer case. That decision
writing or sanctioning official prayers."
That was what Engel v. Vilate was all about. To leap from that wise decision to a ban on the singing of Adeste Fidels in the public schools of Maryland is to deny that consequence ever was intended by the Court, and none ought to be permitted.
suburban Prince George's County, when Isaac Franck, executive vice president of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, discovered that many were conducting Christmas assemblies. Here the children were singing choral selections, among them such "distinctively religious Christian hymns" as "Amazing Grace" and "Little Town of Bethlehem, and Hark! The Angelic Angels.
Franc complained to Carl W. Hassel, superintendent of county schools, and Hassel issued some fresh guidelines: "No songs or music programs that have a significance for a particular religion should be performed with coincidences with the specific celebration." This produced a headline in the morning Post: "Schools Forbid Hymns," whereupon non-Jewish parents
Black recalled in his opinion a time when governments of the past "shackled men's tongues to make them speak only the religious thoughts that government wanted them to speak and to pray only to the God that they prayed for," he prayed to." He thought it was sacrilegious nor antireligious to say "that each separate government in this country should stay out of the business of
seemed to me then, and seems to me now, sound law. The New York Board of Regents had come up with a proposal, a brief prayer for use in the schools. In New Hyde Park the prayed he was to be said aloud "by each class in the presence of the school day." a latter late judicial Black, speaking for a $2 Courses held the practice "wholly inconsistent with the Establishment Council and of course he was right."
The great Christmas carols long ago lost what purely religious significance they may once have held. They are now part of a cultural inheritance, a breed of churchwardens, an awareness that is the mark of a civilized society. One might as well ban reproductions of the paintings of El Greco or Botticelli. it is Michelangelo's Pieta a "pretty religious" work of art? Plainly not. it is a tremendous joy to hear and feel emotions far beyond the narrow confines of Mark 27 or Luke 15.
So, too, with the carols. They have no more "purely religious" meaning than a Bach cantata. Silent Night dates from Austria in 1818. Mendelssohn wrote Hark! the Herald Angels Sing in 1840. O Little Town of Bethlehem dates from America in 1868. As they are, these are newcomers. An English version of Adeste Fidelis has been sung for 200 years, but it is kind to Roy. Older, away in a Manger goes back to Luther. The haunting O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is thought to date from the 12th Century.
With deference to the Jewish spokesman, he takes a sound principle and beats it into the music. He also bores to be urge the Jewish children to join in the singing. Many of them have beautiful voices. They will be corrupted by the experience, but hopefully would improve the chorus.
(C) The Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
Congressmen Fix Traffic Tickets
Jack Anderson
WASHINGTON—There are no more staucha champions of law and order than those two old curmudgeons from South Carolina, Sen. Strom Thurmond said in a speech when it comes to traffic offences, they don't believe the laws apply to themselves or their friends.
For 24 years, McMillan used his position as chairman of the District of Columbia Committee to fix traffic tickets for his cronies on Capitol Hill. He even took care of tickets issued to his staff in the dining room and the man who attended him in the House gym.
Leading the parade of those who came to McMillan to get tickets fixed was stern, straight Strom Thurmond. The Washington police seldom hit the light when he knocked on the police rays. But they used to issue polite warning notices.
Even these were regarded as an affront to his senatorial dignity by old Strom, who a few years ago asked McMillan to instruct the police to stop annoying him with warning notices.
"The fact that each car parked in violation received some type of citation appears to keep down the
McMillan obligingly demanded an explanation from William J. Livermore, then the director of the traffic division, who replied apologetically, "Quite often our officers are placed in a position where several vehicles are parking on the road." To issue traffic violation notices to all except those bearing Congressional or Dpl (diplomatic) tags can result in complaints and criticism, which might be embarrassing to someone.
complaints. However, I wish to assure you that we will be guided by your wishes in this matter."
McMillan's wishes were to stop the warning notices and they were obediently stopped. Indeed, the officers could be a command by the police, who fixed hundreds of tickets at his requests. Parking, jawwalking and moving violations alike were then when McMillan intervened.
he once got a ticket himself in Columbia, S.C., where he had less choice than the mayor asking him to fix the ticket. McMillan offered, in return, to take care of him 'any time' when he knew when you are in Washington.
We have uncovered dozens of his letters to Livermore, written during the 1980s. "The enclosed ticket," he wrote in a typical letter, "was given to the son of William William R. Hull III of Missouri." We Congressman is my closest friend on Hill."
"I know," wrote McMillan about a speeding violation, "99 percent of the people drive faster than 32 miles per hour, and if they did not we would be 1 or 2 hours getting home every evening."
Another time, he explained,
"one of these tickets was placed
on a South Carolinian's car at
a bus stop where she stopped in
a bus zone for a few minutes,
and am certain no bus was using
the zone at this time."
In behalf of a ticketed tourist, McMillan wrote, "I hope you can have this ticket adjusted, since we are continuing to encourage throughout the United States to visit the nation's capital."
stituents could get their tickets fixed through the McMillan. After taking care of a ticket for former Rep. Bob Ashmore, D-S.C., for example, McMillan wrote magnanimously. I was pleased to see him. I was very careful in having the Park Police adjust the ticket given to your constituent while he was visiting the Washington Monument."
Even his colleagues' con-
Mr. Mac, as he was known to his staff, has now been turned out of office by the voters in South Carolina. He'll be sorely missed by his cronies when they get caught violating the traffic laws.
Fancy Command Post
Fairly common post
The Price Commission,
established to hold down in-
flation, imposes economies on
others while it indulges in extravagances itself.
The commission has just lavished $85,000 on itself for a new living room. In dramatic lighting it, it celebrated Pentagon's celebrated war room.
Down the hall from the chairman's office is the new windless,丰绒 carpeted, richly panelled, soundproof room. It is every bit as spectacular as the command post in the TV space-fiction series, Star Trek. Seven slide projectors, complete with screens and console, give the floor the feel of spaceship. Six of the screens and their consoles line the back of the room in a semicircle. Another far larger screen dominates the front wall.
The commissioners sit around a large, Lshaped fancy wooden table in color-coordinated swivel chairs. They start to startle, the screens can fill up with everything from the Price Commission's agenda for the day and the growth of an industry—all presented in six different ways.
"A along with this went economic distress. The assurance for the future of our children dwindled. We found our great cities and the control of much of our industry and commerce taken over by strangers, who were not good enough and prosperity against us. Shortly they came to dominate our government. The blue (read: quota) system by which this is now doable is familiar to all . . .
The slide equipment alone cost $35,000. A spokesman explained that the projectors present information so quickly and efficiently that the commissioners were as often as other agency heads, who still shuffle papers back and forth at their meetings.
Copyright, 1972,
by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
"ENTER THE BALL. WAKE HADE WITH MUSLIE AND THE LINE. I DROP BACK AND I THROW A SCREEN PASS TO MOUNTAIN AND I RUN 10 YARDS AND I SCORE A TUCKDOWN, I LICK THE EXTRA POINT"
Garry Wills
White Ethnics in Ironic Spot
"Finally came the mora breakdown that has been going on for two decades. One by one all our traditional moral standards went by the boards or were so disregarded that they ceased to be binding. The sacredness of our Sabbath, of our homes, of chastity, and finally even of our family, was destroyed. Our own schools fundamental facts and truths, were torn away from us. Those who maintained the old standards did so only in the face of constant ridicule.
"There appeared first confusion in thought and opinion, a搽ing hesitancy about national issues, leading to sharp contrast to the clear, straight-forward purposes of our earlier years. There was futility in religion, too, which was in danger of dying even more distressing."
There is a good deal of talk these days about the legitimate grievances of white ethnics as the 'older men' of recent politics.
These pleas often have some cogency. But they have been notably lacking in eloquence. I had not come across a truly winged example of pro-ethic prose till I discovered this one:
"We are in a movement of the plain people, very weak in the matter of culture, intellectual support, and trained leadership, and we want to power into the hands of the everyday, not highly cultured, not overly intellectualized, but entirely unspoiled and not de-Americanized, average citizen of America. We all leaders are all of this class—the opposition of the intellectuals and liberals who held the leadership (and; betrayed Americanism. . . is almost autonomous. This is why we ask us open to the charge of being 'hicks' and 'rubes' and 'drivers of
second-hand Fords.' We admit it. . .
"Every popular movement has suffered from just this handicap, yet the popular movements have been the mainsprings of it. Our usually had to win against the 'best people' of their time."
All the themes are here—resentment of the intellectuals, a feeling of being showed aside, a sense of liberation among aspirants to the American dream. One should, it is argued, heed such a cry from the heart, especially when it comes from the voting public—as this one did.
I have been quoting from the 1928 Statement of Hiram Wesley Evans, the Imperial Wizard of the Klu Kux Khan in its period of democracy. The Democratic Party. Two years before this statement, the Klan played a key role in deadlocking the Democratic convention measure to repudiate the Klan war before a tense battle.
Two years after this statement, the anti-Klan forces prevailed, and gave the nomination to an urban progressive Catholic, Al Smith. The Klan-sympatizing wing of the Democratic Party
made it their business to bring about Smith's landslide defeat
I am not saying that the new spokesmen of an ethnic politics are racists or Klansmans. I am not even saying that the Klan's old grievances are unjustified, Still, they are not. We still resemblances between the new (rather choked) manifestos and the old (more fluent) plea, especially when we remember that the targets of the Evans outury were urban Catholic men who had sold the old stock," the very people who are repeating the ethnic arguments today!
(C) Universal Press Syndicate, 1972
Readers Respond
Abortion Laws, Feminists
Misleading Story
To the Editor:
The article in the Kanan on Monday, December 4, entitled "Abortion Laws Still Plague Legislators, Counselors," was misleading in several aspects. Particularly, the description of the practice of the clinic is lacking. My first-hand information comes from having worked at that clinic for several months. The boycott has been in effect for over a month, involving referral groups in at least seven states near Kansas. The director who is the director's secretary) is well aware of the boycott and has taken steps, such as having more doctors working, toward recovering the business. This
partial success has not been enough to weaken the boycott.
Minor mistakes in the article included the cost factor at that clinic, which is well over an average of $150.00, and the description of the most common error was explained as taking only 5 to 10 minutes cannot be D and C and D and C usually takes 30 minutes or more and is not the most popular method used today. A suction D and C, takes less than three minutes, is less than twelve weeks, and it is the more extensively used procedure.
Misinformation about such services is especially damaging at a time just prior to the conclusion of an audit in January. Although the law in
Kansas pertaining to abortion is not as liberal as some of us would like, we are in the position of possibly losing even the foot-in-the-sole that most people important that each person who feels that the decision to terminate a pregnancy belongs to the individuals involved write to their legislators in support of liberals' law being made more permanent, that would replace law with one which would be more restrictive.
If there are any questions about the subject or about your legislators' addresses contact me at 842.7052
--attacking the societal expectation that every woman will get married and become a housewife. It is challenging the socialization process that tries to teach women how to little girl, the key word is "choice." I have nothing but respect for the woman who knows herself, her abilities and her needs, and who chooses to become a housewife. My concern is that it is actually a choice of a socialization process that has been trying to guide her in that direction. The reason that the feminist movement stresses careers other than housewifery is because be a housewife is often a sign of women by our social structure that it does not really need any more publicity.
By Sokoloff
Griff and the Unicorn
Feminism
$ \textcircled{2} $ Universal Press Syndicate 1972
To the Editor:
In his editorial of November 30,
"Degrading Freedom", Robert Ward drastically misinterprets
the language used in the movement as "shaming and
degrading the woman who enjoys
be a housewife" and contends that
that attitude "deprives the
of their sense of human dignity."
In the first place, Ward himself appears not to hold much respect for the position of housewife. His defense of housewifery is incorporated into his plea for respect for mediocre persons, from whom he must conclude that he is inherently medicine-like become housewives, or that all housewives are mediocre women. To this confusion let me respond that there is nothing inherently mediocre or degrading about the position of housewife. Maintaining a home and caring for a family can be difficult, but it does not for those persons who choose it.
But that is the important distinction—for those who choose it. The feminist movement is
1
Mary Mitchelson Baxter Springs, Ks. Senior
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