4 Wednesday, December 6, 1972 University Daily Kansan KANSAN comment Hilltopper Awards: 'Producers' vs. Plain Folk During the past couple of years the Jayhawker yearbook has been boxed, serialized, radicalized, and now— finally, normalized. It had been made relevant—maybe too relevant. The idea behind the yearbook was, I always supposed, to be a history of the good things that happened during a more simple time—a book to collect dust for years until, in a moment of nostalgia, it is opened to all the old faces, places and issues. Somehow, this book helps me remember the shooting deaths of Rick Dowdell and Nick Rice and the bombings and burnings doesn't seem all that nostalgic. This, though, is what the relevant yearbook gave us. These days, relevance (read political consciousness) is on the wane, saddle oxfordes are back in, pleated pants the rage, and sockhops so far in they're almost out, as the saying goes. The yearbook this year is in good company. And with the revitalized yearbook comes the Hilltopter award. The Hilltopters are those few people chosen by the yearbook staff each year to represent what we all should know about sports, and spent a little too much time at Bogart flicks, basketball games, poetry readings, hanging out at the Union, or just taking it all in. Hilltoppers, they say, "produce" even if it means stepping on a few toes, while the rest of us try to live our life day, getting what pleasure we can without getting in someone's way. Step on a few tweets and there, "produce" something—what it takes to qualify—and you can get your way in the yearbook as a Hilltoper. Now, before all you who covet the Hilltop award, or have won it already, get indignant and write me sarcastic letters about my pompous boss. "What's not you but the spirit in which the award is given that is offensive." This is a hard award for people who make hard things happen—the "producers." For some reason they are held up as our ideals. There are, though, a great number of people at this University who are not particularly pushy, rarely step on toes, don't often "produce" in the Hilltopper sense of the word—but in the end, are warm, friendly and compassionate people. These people love happiness into the lives of a few good people and they will have lived a good life because of it. An award for the non "producers" too. —Thomas E. Slaughter The Light at the End? After a lull in the excitement caused by the expectation of peace in Vietnam in late October, the chances for some sort of settlement seem to be picking up again. This time it has become very obvious that the United States is negotiating for itself. The desires of President Thieu do not seem to be receiving the same consideration that they have in the past. Thieu has been made to understand that if he does not sign the treaty being worked out by Henry Kissinger and the North Vietnamese negotiator, Le Duc Tho, he might be fighting a war without American money and men. There is something unwholesome about supporting a government and pretending that government is a free agent. Now that the Saigon government is not dancing for us as a puppet should, we will just release it from its strings. However, when we do that, it appears that we will also take away much of the power that it had. Nevertheless, I cannot feel too bad about the ruin of a government directed by Thieu. Now the negotiations seem to take into account that this war was our war and not the South Vietnamese' despite what our various presidential administrations have said about preserving democracy in Vietnam. Our land did not have to endure it, but our equipment, our money and our men fought it. I do not mean to be bellicose any contributions that the Vietnamese military made in dragging this war through twenty years but rather to recognize our responsibility for it. Finally it is time to get America out of our war. In the interests of peace and Vietnamese citizens I hope that the South Vietnamese government will agree to the treaty. If they don't then they must carry on the fighting by themselves and have a war that really is a Vietnam war. —Mary Ward Jack Anderson Skyjack Scheme a Hoax WASHINGTON - For *few* weeks, a small plane circled over a lonely area of the Southwest waiting for a signal to toss out a satelite. The plane was secretly billionaire Howard Hughes's bilionaire Howard Hughes's airline, Airwest, to stop an ex- pedition from blowing up a passenger jet. The bizarre extortion plot, which authorities tried to hush up, began with an anonymous person who was arrested at Airwest's Phoenix offices. Although confusing on some points, the letter indicated that a pressure-sensitive box, set for a certain altitude, was on board an explosion lasted for 150 hours an explosion 150 hours after Airwest received the letter. To learn its location, the airplane was to, within three days, collect more than $100,000 and send it aboard a small plane over an a-prearranged course over the barren stretches of the Southwest. The airplane would signal when the satchel was to be dropped from the plane. Once the satchel was received. Wild as the scheme was, Air-west chose to take it seriously. Risk a midair explosion with risk a crew and crew aboard was unthinkable. the letter promised, the airline would be notified which plane was rigged with the bomb. The airline has 20 jets operating over 9,000 miles of routes. As fast as they hit the ground, they were searched from nose to tail, from wheel well to cabin roof. Once searched, each plane was tour surveillance to prevent a bomb from being seaked aboard. Despite these precautions, the airline, taking no chances, assembled the cash. It was packed into a satchel and flown to Cessna-150 over the designated area. The team decided to ready drop the satchel, watched for the signal which never came. protected that during the bomb search its mechanics were kept ignorant of the danger by the airline, FBA and FAA. Union workers are being using the September scare to the FFA, FBA and Congress for guidelines in future cases. He is also asking the Labor Department to rule that employees must be notified of bomb and hijack danger. sashington Whirl THEIU-HUNGLAP- President Nixon entered into direct negotiations with the South Vietnamese after the U.S. embattled government and President Thieu had lost confidence in Henry Kissinger. He left the Vietnamnese, then accepted a draft, Kissinger, and accepted a draft, the North Vietnamese, in making cease-fire agreement. The cease-fire agreement, Thieu objected, was too harsh. It failed to take into account the complexities of the Vietnam War. NIXON'S NEPHEW- President Nixon's 26-year-old nephew Donald A. Nixon, has been a constant source of patient efforts by the White House to keep him out of trouble. He has turned up as a personal aide in the Bahamas to financier attempts to divert $284 million in the accused by the Securities Exchange Commission of attempting to divert $284 million in his personal use. The White House has prehensive when young Nixon is tasked to work for Nixon's company he has given his trusted aid, John Ehrichman, the delicate, confidential assignment of keeping a wary eye on assignments from his family. So Ehrichman took the Nixon nephew aside and spoke of hours, urging him to behave with care to job and do nothing to embarrass President. There is no evidence involved in any way in Nicec's alleged fraud. But Vesco paid him generously and tried to on the fact he had the President's nephew on his payroll. PHONY ENVIRONMENTALI- STS—TO CONSERVATION-minded congression, Henry Reuss, D Wis., and John Dongkell, D-Mich. have caught the federal government trying to pass off strip-minders as environmentalists. They are the National Coal Association, the Dungell wrote to environmentalists so much to ecological spillage, listed in a new federal directory of environmental organizations and Dungell wrote to environment officials that "if the National Coal Association qualifies," then so do the oil, gas and other national sources. He asked Kruckeshus to halt distribution of the coal lobby was stricken from it. The company copied simply acknowledged that his agency had goofed. EMBARRASSING DETAIL- Benjamin Ichinose, corporate president of a taco food chain in Florida, has been named in a list of chain discriminates against blacks. The suit comes at a most embarrassing moment for him, just appointed to serve a two-year term on the President's Council for Minority Enterprise. Copyright, 1972, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc. Nader Needed Despite Critics It is interesting to watch the critics of Ralph Nader. For the conservatives, he is too radical—questioning General Motors is running a Devil Providence. For radicals it is too conservative—they don't want to improve the auto industry, but dismantle it. For the system it is too little "within the system" these ideas, he should run for office. it? Or about anything? That is always the response to a prophet who spots some social weakness. What good could it do for a young There are others for whom everything he does is wrong. He is a nuisance, but he doesn't act unintentionally—i.e. he does simultaneously too little. He is a one-issue man, and he spreads himself too thin. He doesn't do his own reports, so he does not incarcerate; but what he does is not excessive. He is against the system, yet he has ambitions within it. He is too peripheral, and too "political." He upsetting to many young people. expecting too many young people. If I knew nothing else about him, his critics alone would convince me he is on to something. When any stick is good enough to beat a man with, then he represents a real menace. to his critics. Their desperation is a form of aribute to him: "I hate the matter. Whatever weaknesses he may have, he has obviously found them." challenged a whole attitude where the nation's conscience was uneasy, defensive, desperate. man to tell his parishioners to boycott the city's bues?—yet Martin Luther King changed the whole nation's attitudes on race and equality. His efforts did not arise from any disease issue, but from the fact that he Everything King did was wrong, too. He should stay in the room, or run for office; stick to his life and not regardness of color; discuss moral abstractions, but stay off the war. He was a racist to some, an anti-racists; too political, too impractical, too activist, too non-violent. But what can one man do about This kind of catalyst is too controversial for politics, but does more than the politicians. He moved the Catholic Worker movement more for the Catholic Church in America than has any leading bishop. A social worker like Jane Addams brought about more legislation than any legislator who finally voted for the kind of bills she inspired. What is the point on which our society feels so vulnerable in Nader's case? I think it is our native American assumption that our leaders are morally beyond our own decisions, an official decision. Business is America's morality. But what is America's morality in business. The strength of such people came from the weak spot they managed instinctively to find. Nader did not make the old (and ineffectual) charge that businessmen try to cheat each individual salesman can be a businessman was saying that the whole system of an industry could be not only a hoax but an actual menace to the public. The crooked businessman was seen as benevolent. But what if it were not? That was—for many, still is—an unaskable question. And Nader is telling it, about all our social system, from GM to Congress to the Pentagon. To be honest, the people nervous. We need him. (C) Universal Press Syndicate, 1972 Readers Respond Engineers To the Editor: SCoRMEBE, 5-Story 'Hawk Your story "Black Engineer Prospects Get Boost" is an example of inaccurate and flagrant reporting. The article lacks the sensitivity and inference required to relay the basic concept. Initially, SCORMEBE means "Student Council for Recruiting, Motivating, and Educating Black Engineers." SCORMEBE has the scope of "black." Although the name SCORMEBE, we feel that by limiting our organization to blacks we are only con- trasting with the program was initially founded, combat racial discrimination, not propagate it. As it is now, SCORMEBE means "Student Council for Recruiting, Motivating, and Educating Minority Engineers." An example of inaccurate reporting is the statement that provided free tutorial services enrolled in engineering. It should be obvious that SCORMEB can not raise funds, recruit and provide free tutorial services in engineering students. Our present organizational structure limits us to providing tutorial services only for SCoRMEBE members. It should be noted that School of Engineering expands services and goals if it provides full financial support by the School of Engineering and the University. The present seven per cent investment in the School of Engineering at KU, be doubled or even tripled if SCHOOLBE expands full support. The News article also states that SCORMEBED and two facets, a summer program and a winter program, will provide the summer program for the purpose of providing the participant with confidence, and which at the end would lead to an academic gap that might exist between the participant and the average freshmen that enters the program if a student plans to enter KU, that student will enroll in regular university courses. The winter program does not exist; students must be regular university semester. One of the most pertinent issues facing the industry is the involvement of engineering's involvement in meeting the future demands of industry with technology. affirmative action plan should be required to equivocal support of SCoMRemain firmative action plan should not begin with meeting the demands Charles Lockhart, J. Chicago sophomore Ron Taylor Ron Taylor Pontiac, Mich. Student Rep. SCOREMER ★ ★ ★ Architecture Editor, The Daily Kansan The five-story Jayhawk proposed as a design class project and described in the Daily Kansan of Nov. 30, 1972, is concept-deserving not only recognition but an appropriate execution. One is hesitant to offer critical comment on a project of such striking magnificence, lest one appear to bellate the nobleness of the thought that originated it. But you should be able to further the ultimate aim of your project one may be permitted to offer a few suggestions. Detailed information on the project was not available in the Kansan report (for example, the diameter of the 15 story tower). For this reason one is somewhat reluctant to suggest that the seven million proposed for the city should be based on. However, based on proportional relations suggested by the photo and the upright in present conditions, one might venture that a building would be more generously appropriate. Certainly the quality of the execution should be equal to that of the plan. One might further suggest, since it appears that one of the objectives was to create a Jaywahk "that could be seen from all over Lawrence," that the skyline might reveal a better location. The top of the hill, perhaps even the site of Fraser Hall, offers a much greater for visibility than the proposed Louisiana and Massachusetts Street and 12th Street. the seven million suggested for the cost of the base could be generous and splendid realization of Jayhawk. Perhaps the Jayhawk itself could be made 10 years later, but it is timorous when thinking big. Since Fraser Hall already made it safe, no doubt he would not even be necessary to build the 15-story building to serve as a library. If Fraser were to serve as a store Can't you see it now? A most glorious joylahk displayed, leaning back against the sky, spread-eagled in the manner of a giant bird on the half-dollar! A foot poised on each of the cupulas and the traditional, wind-windbed flags upheld in the grasp of each wing! The wings are lighted by plastic, lighted from within, and with ruby-like air protection lights twinkling at the tip of each flagpole, this splendid bird could then be seen night and day from Topека, perhaps even further. Imagine how your heart would leap up to see this beacon of information, as well as culture and information, as standing there for all to see. Curtis Bestinger Professor of architecture and urban design Griff and the Unicorn By Sokoloff Universal Press Syndicate 1972 1 I B hous year poli tive. Phi are D THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN America's Pacemaking college newspaper Newsroom—UN 4-4810 Business Office—UN 4-4358 NEWS STAFF Published in the University of Kansas daily during the academic year, career ballet and dance programs are open to all students. The program is offered to all students without regard to color, sex or national origin. Differences expressed herein do not reflect those of the University of Kansas. direc were mov Burkman Adelson Mel Adams News Adviser... Susanne Shaw AOR Editor Scott Sp特尔 Associate Editor Jason Newman Campaign Editor Jerry Handel Becker Designer Salty McKenzie Copy Chief Glance Micke, Mard Sawyer Associate Editors Andie Koppy, Cary Sherman Editor Sean Selter Feature Editors Emma Jones, Elaine Zimmerman Writer Jeffrey Warner Tum Shlaughter, Mary Ann Zimmerman Wire Editors Heas Glauber, Linda Chaput Reviewers Joe Sanatza Review Editor Joe Sanatza Researcher Joe Coleman, Pris Brandtstein, Linda Chaput Reporter Jeffrey BUSINESS STAFF Business Manager Dale Piperpleger Advertising Manager Andrew Arnoldt Manager Artificial Advertising Manager National Advertising Manager Classified Advertising Manager Linda Grewner Cheri Davis Mark Bedner, Jr. REPRESENTED FOR NATIONAL ADVERTISING BY National Educational Advertising Services A DIVISION OF READER'S DIRECTOR OF SERVICES, INC. 360 Lexington Ave. New York, N.Y. 10017