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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Nov. 12, 1958
Slow Down and Graduate
We are lucky at KU. Our campus traffic is too slow to permit murder by automobile. Except for an occasional dragstrip car, nobody can accelerate fast enough to reach killing speed in our traffic. Of course, we have many stout-hearted chaps who keep trving.
Congestion is our traffic problem, and it is almost incurable with so many cars and so little space. But accidents might be prevented with a few easy steps. Whether these steps are legal we are not sure, but they would be effective.
1. Prohibit loading or unloading passengers on Jayhawk Blvd. during class breaks. This would keep traffic moving, even if slowly.
2. Ban speeders from driving on campus for a
month. If the campus police have authority to do this, it would thin out traffic a good deal.
3. Whenever possible, use policemen giving tickets as roving spotters during class breaks to keep cars moving and to ticket violators.
4. Give absolute right of way to pedestrians in crossing lanes. Right now, the white lines are just good places to wait while the cars whiz by.
The main problem, of course, is the shortage of campus police. The men we have do their best, but with 4,000 cars in this little area, they just can't spot everything. That makes it largely the driver's responsibility to act sanely.
We have a lot of drivers who refuse that duty.
-Al Jones
Progress Is Bad?
Twenty-five years ago Prohibition was repealed. Ten years ago Kansas followed suit, but the state still enforces partial prohibition. Some progress. The sale of mixed drinks is unlawful, and near-beer continues to be the rage, if not the desire.
Really, Prohibition never should have been repealed. People apparently had a bigger time when the law was in effect than they have now under moderate dictums.
Drinking parties that would put some campus organizations to shame were held in wild profusion. Everybody laughed, drank and experimented on home distilleries. The nation was alive with
joy—it had an issue to oppose, or better, to flout.
In comparison, today's drinking holds forth in morbid, sheltered atmospheres. The binge is still present, but not in continuous form. The era of the unlabeled bottle is past, or nearly so. The only home hooch left is either impotent or poisonous.
Now we drink in conventional patterns. No one ever sees males inhaling champagne from female slippers.
Goldfish swallowers would no longer be laughed at, merely ostracized.
The modern drinking parties are humdrum,
conservative. We wonder at the claim of progress
when the gaiety is diminished. —John Husar
Editor:
A Blue Note
Who is John Hasar? As crew members of the "sputtering, two-stage rocket" which was "unveiled Friday night in the University Theatre" and that "barely ignited in the second stage to set the whole gizmo into orbit" (whatever that means), we would like to question the infamous authority of the George Bernard Shaw of Mount Oread.
While writing this little memorandum, we of course realize that we are most sacrilegiously challenging the sacred dribble of "yours and mine" favorite musical gourmet. But yet, how can we, as members of that "impotent orchestra with ragged harmony and blaring notes" (also whatever that means), have enough musical sensitivity to properly interpret this
... Letters ...
music without the incredible theatrical and musical knowledge of Cecil B. Husar.
It only seems congruous that if such authoritative criticism of KU's cultural "attempts" continues, The Daily Kansan must surely select its sports connoisseurs from the ranks of the freshman female music majors.
In closing, we realize that this rebuttal may not be as eloquently phrased as that delivered by Mr. Jerome Kilty at a UDK theater critic last fall, but we felt it necessary to voice what seemed to be the opinion of the rest of the culprits implicated in this "accident."
Again—who is John Husar?
Lyle Merriman
Lawrence junior
Marlan Carlson
Wayne, Neb. senior
Gary Foster
Lawrence senior
Hail, Hail . . .
Editor:
I feel that some comment is needed concerning John Husar's remarks on "The King and [] in the Nov. 10 Kansan. Mr. Husar stated:
"We anticipated a great revival of a great show...we didn't get it." Husar must have had a mouse in his pocket when he attended this musical production, for I am sure that is the only justification he could have for using the plural form to convey his feeling of dis-appointment.
Speak for yourself, John! The University drama department deserves only the highest praise for the excellent performance of "The King and I."
Richart M. Barnes Seneca junior
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS BY BIBLER
Short Ones
Comparative anatomy is not the course you might think it is, and a great pity too.
If the proper committee were more concerned with the over-all effect and less with placating the houses, we'd never have six houses with the same idea for Home-coming decorations.
If American ingenuity is so great, why don't we have a sports car for the college crowd, with a buckle in the back?
Dailu hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904,
trilweekly 1898, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Extension 711, news room
Extension 276, business office
Telephone Vlkling 3-2700
Member Inland Daily Press Association.
Associated College Press. Repres-
ented by National Advertising Service,
420 Madison Ave. New York,
USA. Represented by International Mall subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University days, nine cumulative points. Extends second minimum-secret September 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan. post office under act of March 3, 1879.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Malecolm Applegate Managing Editor
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Irvine ... Business Manager
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Al Jones  Editorial Editor
... Books in Review
By Kay Reiter
MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR, by Phyllis McGinley.
Illustrated by Honka Karasz, Viking Press, $2.50.
"Readers of essay or continued story;
You who delight in large print or in small You constant readers and you desultory;
You who delight in large print or in small;
You constant readers and you do宗旨
Readers in bed: readers in easy chairs
Readers in bed; readers in easy chairs
You constant readers and you desultory;
With esoteric tomes upon your laps;
Desk-readers; you who read in middle air,
Hanging from subway straps;
A chapter with your lunch
Or only read on evenings when it rains;
Or, indolent, in tubs;
Who plump for Pultsch or who love a sequel—
Readers on trains;
All you who browse in bookshops, at your clubs.
Or, indolent, in tubs;
I send you greetings warm and free and equal.
Who plump for Plutarch or who love a sequel—
Yes, Christmas greetings from Phyllis McGinley, the likes of which you'll probably never receive again! For this little book of Christmas verses is unique in every way. From the funny, flippant little pink, chartreuse, and black illustrations done by Ilonka Karasz to the unexpected and witty rhymes of the lines, this collection is as warm and original as can be.
In it, the "other side" of the holiday season is given the full treatment, the side that includes the office party where "Miss McIntosh, who handles Files has lost one shoe and her decorum," and the after- Christmas business of, well, let Miss McGinley tell you:
Nothing remains except the thank-you letters Most tedious to the mind, And the gilt gadget (duplicated) which is Marked for exchange at Abercrombie-Fitch's.
See what I mean about unexpected rhymes?
But don't shy away from this book just because it is verse. It is first rate light verse, and nothing in it is trite or superficial. If you enjoy Nash or Parker, you'll love McGinley. She writes with such unconcealed pleasure and good humor that the mood is catching.
Yet, beneath some of the playful banter is a seriousness which is undeniable. The description of the lady who "fastidiously, with gloved and careful fingers," selects the Christmas cards that will "bear her name (engraved, not printed), twelve-fifty for the box," is actually a plea to take the dollar sign out of Christmas.
McGinley, although a verse writer, has the heart of a poet. This sympathy and warmth creeps into every line of "How The Beasts Keep Christmas" and "The Holy City," two completely charming sketches of the sacred midnight hour in a stable and on a battlefield.
Perhaps the most winning feature of this collection, and of all Miss McGinley's writing, is the obvious sincerity. She writes in such a straightforward, unassuming manner that the reader is almost magnetically drawn to the work. A housewife and a mother, Miss McGinley writes quite successfully about the things she knows, homey, everyday things.
For a sweet and novel Christmas gift, or just an hour of relaxing reading, I recommend Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.
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