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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, October 11, 1968
Office of obscurity?
Through the course of American history, the office of the vice presidency has moved through the gamut from the celebrated to the obscure. Now, due to the turbulence of recent years, it is important for the electorate to thoroughly scrutinize the candidates for the vice presidency.
The downfall of the vice presidency is traced by many historians to the ratification of the 12th Amendment in 1804, providing for electors to vote separately for the vice president. Since that time vice-presidential candidates have usually been picked for their political appeal in balancing a party ticket, with scarcely more than an after-thought given to their ability as a possible Chief Executive.
Woodrow Wilson's vice president, Thomas Marshall, used to tell this story: "There were once two brothers. One ran away to sea. The other was elected vice president and neither was heard of again."
The vice presidency has been the object of more jokes than accolades. And one must dismally admit that this year is no exception. Richard Nixon picked a running mate that political satirists could live with if Republican liberals could not. Spiro Agnew has proven himself entertaining if not always adept. On the other side, however, Edmund Muskie seems secure from the cartoonist's pencil as long as Hubert Humphrey is by his side.
Although traditionally the vice president has been treated more in jest than prophesy, historical consideration should convince voters to view the candidates for that office more seriously.
Eleven of the 35 men who have served this
nation as President came by way of the vice presidency. Eight of these reached the Presidency due to the death of the Chief Executive. More significant yet is that six Presidents in the last half century have either died in office or fallen seriously ill.
Despite the fact that three national leaders have been assassinated within the last five years, the vice president's ability to govern still takes a back seat to the political advantages he lends to a party ticket.
With the uncertainty that clouds this election year, more attention should be focused on the vice-presidential candidates. Here for certain, there is more than a dime's worth of difference.
Agnew, who most clearly represents the placable political compromise, has done as much as George Wallace to make "law and order" the cliche of the '68 campaign. The Maryland Republican claims views similar to those of President Johnson on Vietnam and has followed suit with Nixon on postponing ratification of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Meanwhile, the cool, candid Muskie has been one of the most refreshing figures in this election year. The Maine Senator has dealt with protestors and hecklers, not by hammering at the "law and order" theme, but by offering them the platform; then firmly and often eloquently responding to their arguments. He listens and then responds. Contrary to Agnew, Muskie has pushed for safeguards on nuclear weapons and commended the foreign aid program, saying it should be updated.
New uses for ditch
There's a big ditch cutting through Mississippi Street. It begins somewhere in the bowels of the Kansas Union and spills out above X-Zone parking lot.
This ditch is the beginning of KU's wonderful new tunnel from the union to the parking lot. Now students and football fans can walk, unmolested by traffic, between the two facilities. How many pedestrians have been maimed or killed on the Mississippi thoroughfare is unknown, but it must be quite large to justify the expenditure.
At any rate, the university administration has again shown its amazing ability for choosing construction priorities. After all, who needs a new classroom building or an addition to Watkins Hospital?
Students listening to language tapes in Blake Annex or instructors with offices in Lindley annex can smile smugly knowing they won't have to drive over refuse dropped by football fans after a Saturday game.
All the afflicted, resting two to a bed at the university hospital, can rest easily knowing pedestrians can now cross Mississippi Street. All those sitting on the floor in the Watkins waiting room can feel a little safer, knowing that if they ever get out of the hospital they can drive down the Mississippi Turnpike without fear of hitting a iaywalked coe.
Classes meeting in the former Carruth-O'Leary dormitory may reap the greatest benefits. Class members and instructors will be able to run across the park, through the tunnel and into the union for a soft drink without a single worry about traffic. At any rate, the campus will be a better, safer place to live except for hospital patients, students with classes in the annexes or CarruthO'Leary and professors with little or no office space.
But, bitterness is not in order, nor are ultimatum demands on the administration. The whole problem can be ironed out by the old political device, so much in disfavor today, namely compromise. With a little shuffling everyone could be satisfied.
The first part of the university shuffle would be to move hospital beds into the tunnel and locate a waiting room in the basement of the union. Then the vacated hospital rooms could be used for language labs, classrooms and offices. Finally, after being vacated, the annexes could be dismantled and useable materials from these buildings could form the building materials for a beautiful covered bridge over Mississippi Street.
Tim Jones
Assistant Managing Editor
'Check back in a few days. OK?'
"Ain't got a sign," Clyde said. "Let's play National Guardsmen and Looters, and I'll be the bad guy. Now you act like you're running down the street carrying the television set, and I'll run along side you reading a card that informs you of your constitutional rights, then—"
The Hill With It by john hill
"Playing Narcs and Heads ain't no fun," Clyde said. "Not enough violence. Let's play Campus Cops and Kollidge Kids. I'll even be the good guy this time. I'll act like I'm leaving my car parked in a 5-minute loading zone in front of a girl's dorm, and then laughingly try to get my date loaded within the five minutes, while you come running over, frantic, frothing at the mouth—"
The other was a shiny, chrome-plated Official Captain Kill Super-Sonic Death Ray, Grenade Launcher, and Napalm Flame Thrower, for children ages four to six.
A student newspaper serving the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas.
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"Wanna play Cops and Robbers?" said a little boy named Clyde. "O.K." said his little friend, Broderick. "I get to be the cop."
One of the guns was a crude, home-made wooden object in the general shape of an L, with bent nails for the hammer and trigger.
"We can't play National Guardsmen and Looters. No tear gas. Let's play Narcs and Heads. I'll be the good guy and get busted, and—"
"Well, let's don't play Cops and Robbers then. Let's play Police and Protestors," Broderick said, "so you can be the bad guy and I'll carry the sign. Now you don't get to over-react until I over-taunt you, and—"
The two little boys were playing in the backyard with their toy guns.
"You're right," said Clyde, aiming his gun, "let's play War."
And the two little boys began to play, but soon ran into the same problem. . .
"Hev."
"You always get to be the bad guy," complained Clyde. "I want to be the bad guy this time."
"You know something?" Broderick said, sadly. "Playing Cops and Robbers ain't no fun these days. You can't tell the good guys from the bad guys anymore."
"What?"
"We are situated in the very heart of Europe. But unlike the human heart, we cannot be transplanted. We must stay where we are—a part of the socialist camp, a fact accepted by all the world."
PRAGUE-Josef Smrkvsky, Czechoslovak Parliament president, speaking on television to his countrymen:
Quotes
"I have taken this step so that I may devote all my time and energy between now and Nov. 5 to help assure the election of Hubert Humphrey and the defeat of Richard Nixon."
"I guess this means I'll have to go out and buy some new clothes and make some statements."
"The situation is critical. We are out of beer."
SAIGON-Lt. William Glendening, Green Beret officer at an outpost surrounded by 7,000 North Vietnamese soldiers, joking about the predicament:
WASHINGTON—George W. Ball, explaining his decision to resign as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations:
CHOCORUA, N.H.-Authornewman Paul Scott Mowrer, on being advised that he has been nominated for poet laureat of New Hampshire:
Revisit 'Man and Woman'
By SCOTT NUNLEY
"A Man and a Woman" is one of the finest love stories that modern film has recorded. Whatever else you had planned for this weekend, include a revisit to "A Man and a Woman"-it wears with excitement and joy.
But perhaps "love story" is too small a label. "A Man and a Woman" is an adventure in living. It is a complex set of character portraits studied in detail. And at the same time it is itself the story of an adventure, building upon a swift and suspenseful backdrop of international motor racing.
Director Claude Le Louch must be given full credit for his film's versatility and success. Fully sensitive to the varying textures of the Academy Award winning screenplay, he employs selective direction and photography as the cinematic content demands.
When the focus is upon an individual human being—as, for example, upon the worried wife of racing driver Jean-Paul-Le Louch utilizes what are basically still shots. Moving quickly from angle to angle, his cameras amass brief static studies of his subject. Individually, any one shot is a masterpiece of careful composition. Together, these "stills" form a solid portrait.
But when the focus is upon action—here, generally upon the dynamics of powerful automobiles in motion—Le Louch's camerawork is all action, too.
Avoiding the overused ease of panning the lens itself, Le Louch rather fixes his camera and allows the landscape to speed by and the sensual experience of speed is heightened.
Confronting an intricate web of exposition, of the necessary narration of the past lives of his hero and heroine, Le Louch turns to still different cinematic techniques. Color photography provides the key to unravel a mass of flashbacks by
Footage in shades of blue, sepia, and gold does more, of course, then merely signal flashbacks. The colors themselves—ice blue for the sky driving-in-the-rain scenes, hot gold for the consumative love-making—add mood to the scene, heightening the already suberb communicating of actress Anouk Aimee and her husband, actor Pierre Barouh.
contrasting monochromatic scenes with others shot in true-color.
And director Le Louch imaginatively chooses to shade the real, present moment in monochrome, while presenting the remembered, past scene in more vivid technicolor. The result, obviously, is to concentrate the audience's attention upon the power of the continuing energy which his characters' pasts exert on their present lives.
Moving beyond photographic tricks, Le Louch displays a sense of timing and taste that paces "A Man and a Woman" in rapid excitement.
As the race-driver is hurrying to return to his lover, a comic gas station attendant builds tension by artfully blocking the hero's progress. Other comic figures—a school mistress, a waiter—add their moment's relief to a basically linear and serious plot, while flattering the main characters by contrast.
The 1968 version is completely in English. Not only have the distracting (and often unreadable) subtitles been replaced by skillful lip-sync dubbing, but United Artists has recorded English language lyrics to the original French songs.
The gain in American audiences' acceptance is certain: the characters themselves now seem American. The loss of course lies in the subtle French flavor that the original-language version carried to the "foreign" viewer.
But such a minor loss should be unobserved in the face of the sensitive direction and camera control of Claude Le Louch's masterwork.