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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, Oct. 6, 1959
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In Absence of Humor
The University of Kansas will have no humor magazine this year.
This we hate to see, for it seems to reflect on the age in which we live.
We students, like other Americans, live fast, work hard. There isn't time to laugh. We could take time for humor. But we don't. We only take time to be serious.
Education has become a stepping stone to success. The student who does not produce in school jeopardizes his chances of getting a good job after graduation.
There is no place in the academic world for the student of old who gingerly mixed fun with his labor. The ridiculous, the wild, the satirical, have disappeared with the raccoon coat and the touring car.
The relaxed approach to life, with its accompanying zest for humor, was once the trademark of the college student. Ever since the first inspired youth desecrated a sacred cow, the college campus was looked to as a source of fun and laughter
pus was looked to as a source of fun and laughter. This is no longer true. Now we are expected to be serious. We have made it that way.
We cannot laugh and belong. This depresses us, for it is our nature to smile, to be clever, to enjoy life.
We do not laugh because we are frightened that we will break through the false facade of seriousness we have erected around ourselves. We cower before decaying idols of conformity and personal gain.
We cringe when faced with a harmless institution like a humor magazine. For this quarter's worth of paper has power. Its satire wields the sword that will smash our idols and free us from our complacency.
We apparently have no desire for this freedom—the opportunity to see things as they are. We prefer to remain within our flimsy shell, rejecting the humorous or unusual, while tolerating our sickness. —George DeBord
Bonus Happy
A week ago the All Student Council passed out $700 in bonuses to last year's Jayhawker editor and business manager. This is a custom founded on the principle that all exceptional work should be rewarded.
Undeniably the Jayhawker crew performed a hardy task. For this the editor and business manager each received $65 a month. No other organization on the campus pays its executives, with the exception of the Summer Session Kansan, whose two executives receive $160 for eight weeks. Therefore, as most organizations go, both staffs' heads are amply rewarded. But there remains the question of bonuses.
The business department did a better job. Production costs were cut and a large amount of money was left in the yearbook's treasury after the bills were paid.
Bonuses are usually granted for exceptional work. An idea that last year's Jayhawker is exceptional can hardly be entertained after scrutinizing a few previous issues. Following a pattern begun several years ago, the magazine's content, as a whole, exhibits little ingenuity.
The Jayhawker cannot hold more than $4,000 in its treasury. That means all monies in the treasury exceeding $4,000 at the end of the year revert to the ASC. It has become almost traditional to wipe out this excess by giving bonuses to exceptional editors and business managers. Unfortunately, most editors and business managers are not exceptional.
Last year the ASC broke precedent and voted $100 bonuses to each of the 1957-58 Jayhawker executives. Even that seemed too much in the light of their respective publication and salaries.
This year's bonuses, without a doubt, are too generous. At least it is unfair to the mildly "exceptional" party who is forced to share an equal amount with one less deserving. —John Husar
Dislikes Satire
Editor:
As has often been the case, good old John Husar has missed the critical and constructive point of a subject with his editorial on "Band vs. Science." I suspect that he often does this purposefully, but this instance is tragic.
Mr. Husar makes the rather inane suggestion that 12 students drop their "nasty science courses"
and fill the ranks of the band. As a science major alone, I resent this; but as a careful reader I find true fault in this editorial. Professor Russell L. Wiley was quoted as saying that 50 per cent of the band members are music majors. What I'd like to know is where are the rest of the music majors?
Can our music department, one of the best in the country, only muster 40 students who can play band instruments, or is the music
department that small? If the band's own department can only supply 50 per cent of the members, what can be expected of the rest of the schools of the University?
Science and engineering are not hurting the band membership at KU. Rather it is the laxity of the music majors in this school in desiring to gain the invaluable experience of the University band.
Marion Redstone Lawrence junior
With John Morrissey Not only does the Business School have a new building, but the economics professors have started wearing collar stays and button-downs. Truly we can surmise that culture is catching up with education.
Don't worry, people. You know how hard it's going to be on them when they leave this institution of higher learning and proceed into the outer world where there's more of them than there are of us. Then they will be frustrated!
***
Whenever we're in doubt as to the proper functioning of our telephone, we always dial the test number, VI 3-9123. You know, you hear it ringing and figure your phone is okay. For three years now we've been testing our phone this way. Sometimes we let it ring four times, or forty, or four hundred. Nothing strange ever happened.
***
And then last night someone answered it. "GSP," a voice said. "Crazy," we replied, "rive me Suzie Zilch in room four ohh ohl." "Sorry," said the voice, "she doesn't live here."
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
Know what I think happened?
I'd say she graduated while the phone was ringing.
By Janet Juneau
If you often ask yourself. "What will people say?"
If you are hesitant about expressing yourself in a group where the opinions are obviously contrary to yours...
If you are afraid people will frown upon you when you offer an unusual, yet practical solution to a problem...
If you defend someone simply because that person is a member of your sorority or fraternity rather than on the merit of the person's character ...
If you date in a particular house because that house is "accepted" even though you do not enjoy the person's company.
If you are prone to look down upon houses which you feel are inferior to yours..
If you stand in awe of members of other houses, or even change your behavior to impress them, when the house is "rated" higher on your scale...
If you are loyal only to your house rather than to your friends ...
If you do everything "for the good of the house" or to make the house better rather than bettering yourself...
If you are always a representative of the house and not a representative of yourself...
If you answer "yes," you'll be a gung-ho Greek.
By Barbara Solomon Assistant Instructor of English
I WAS A TEEN-AGE DWARF, by Max Shulman, Bernard Geis Associates (Distributed by Random House), $3.50.
Mr. Shulman's latest book makes me wonder if it is meant to be adult reading. "I Was A Teen-Age Dwarf" is mainly composed of incidents whisked right out of the all-too-numerous, mediocre situation comedies concerning teen-agers, which are presently on television.
Dobie Gillis, the central character, progresses from a girl-crazy 13-year-old, to a co-ed-crazy 18-year-old, and finally to the young man "really" in love at the suitable age of twenty-one. Our final view of this female-concerned hero reveals him as a female-dominated husband a few years later. He has exchanged the problem of attracting women, in spite of his small stature, for the problem of managing a wife who can't manage to get along on his small income.
Occasionally, Mr. Shulman amazes me by pulling a bit of humorous entertainment out of his hackneyed situations, much as a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat. He satirizes the psychological approach to the problems of adolescents as Dobie describes Mrs. Gillis's reaction to his report card, on which he had received all F's.
However, the overall impression left by "I Was A Teen-Age Dwart" is that Mr. Shulman's framework proves too much for him. Dobie's adventures turn out to be a rather flat, repetitious series of skirmishes with the opposite sex.
She said I was a member of the shook-up generation, born into a time of strife and tension. She said I was full of ferment and torment. She said my report card was a protest; a blind, unconscious protest, against a world built on false values.
Worth Repeating
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Between nuclear force and man there is no balance of power. It can destroy him any time. He has found no way of destroying it.—Louis Munoz Marin.
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Things have got to be wrong in order that they may be deplored; otherwise there would be no baccalaureate.-A. Whitney Griswold.
UNIVERSITY DAILY Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone Viking 3-2700
Extension 376. business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service. 420 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays, and examination periods. Entered as second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Jack Harrison ... Managing Editor
Carol Allen, Dick Crocker, Jack Morton and Doug Yocam, Assistant
Managing Editors; Rael Amos, City Editor; Jim Trotter, Sports Editor;
Carolyn Frailey, Society Editor.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
George DeBord and John Husar ... Co-Editorial Editors
Saundra Havn. Associate Editorial Editor.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Kane Business Manager
Ted Tidwell, Advertising Manager; Joanne Novak, Promotion Manager; Ruth Rieder, National Advertising Manager; Tom Schmitz,
Circulation Manager; John Massa, Classified Advertising Manager.
Business Manager