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Summer Session Kansan Friday. June 30,1961
The Berlin Crisis
President Kennedy and the Nation's press again warn us that the world is advancing to the brink of another crisis. But in this strife-torn world the average person regards the current warnings, threats, and discussion on Berlin as just some more of the same old thing.
YES, TODAY THE WORD CRISIS has lost much of the impact that it wielded 10 or 12 years ago when the cold war was in its infancy. Now, in 1961, the word crisis is so tattered and torn by the various political situations that it has been used to describe that it no longer has much meaning. Korea, the Suez Canal, Iraq, Formosa, the Congo, Lebanon, Cuba, and Laos have all been at one time or another the scene of crisis in the last decade. There have been minor flare-ups in countless other areas of the globe.
IS THERE ANY DOUBT that these are perilous times? But the average American probably does not realize how near the brink of disaster the world has trod in the last 10 years. Like the steeple jack working on the frame of a skyscraper Americans today peer over the brink of disaster with little concern for the destruction that threatens.
But again Berlin threatens to envelop the world in war. This divided city once more promises to trip the trigger of major conflict between the two mightiest countries in the world
and their allies. Rumblings that have erupted into crisis many times before promise to do more than that this time. Memories of the Berlin airlift of the late '40s are being recalled. Two years is hardly enough time to forget Premier Khrushchev's last threat to push the West out of Berlin.
THIS TIME THE UNPREDICTABLE Russian has aroused even the concern of a world that has known little but political unrest in the last 10 years. American labor leaders promise to unite $12 \frac{1}{2}$ million workers behind any emergency measure the administration wants to take on the Berlin matter. Military strategists are talking about a military build-up in Europe just to show the Russians we mean business.
Americans are beginning to realize that President Kennedy's announcement of our intentions in Berlin are not the idle threats some have accused him of making about Laos. Berlin is not a Laos. There is no comparison between the spirit of the West Germans and the people of Laos. Berlin has long feared being sold down the diplomatic drain. The United States has always assured the people of Berlin that they would not be sacrificed.
Now Mr. Khrushechev is challenging the policy that was born in the airlifts of 1948. A policy which reflects Western determination to keep Berlin free. — Ron Gallagher
Daily Crossword Puzzle
ACROSS
1 Tint.
6 Powder ingredient.
10 Pillow cover.
14 Actress MacMahon.
15 Aroma.
16 Dunce cap shape.
17 Stick-to-the-ribs soup.
19 U.S. information agency.
20 Haphazard try.
21 16th century man-of-war.
23 Export of Bolivia.
24 Fretful.
25 Cold drink with herbs.
28 Conclude by reasoning.
29 On.
30 Skillet.
31 Fur: 2 words.
35 Gallon: Abbr.
36 Vehement declamations.
38 Card game.
39 Tool for forming.
41 Poetic contraction.
42 City on the Arno.
43 Ecclesiastical test.
45 Demolishes.
46 Affirms anew.
49 Norse goddess.
50 Asiatic country.
51 Fasten afresh.
52 Brace.
53 Sales.
54 Capri or Man.
55 Publicizes.
56 Lots; Colloq.
61 Legal document.
62 Laban's elder daughter.
63 Past, present or future.
**DOWN**
1 Where a baseball team trains.
2 Hodgepodge.
3 Companion of blue serge.
4 Cousin of the turkey trot.
5 Transport to a second city.
6 Wrongful act.
7 Fuss.
8 Yearned.
9 Beings.
10 Rowed.
11 Old Testament book.
12 Negative ion.
13 Signified.
14 Metric ___ 1000 kilograms.
12 Henry and Clare
24 Roman house-
hold gods.
25 Cuts unevenly.
26 Where part of the Wasatch
Range is.
27 Girl in popular
song of '55.
28 Patriotic ladies:
Abrr.
30 Reminiscent of Kidd.
32 Form into tufts.
33 Tributary of the
Humber.
34 Memorable time.
34 Man from Dallas.
37 Noise.
40 Ceased gradually
(with "out").
42 Player of
"heavy" movie
roles.
44 Ear of maize.
45 Meal.
46 Swift.
47 Clean the
blackboard.
48 Pleasant look.
49 Pronoun.
51 Foolhardy.
52 Scrutinize.
53 Spreads for
drying.
54 Actual being.
57 Noteworthy period
(Answer on page 4)
Washington May Get Parisian Air
WASHINGTON—(UPI)—In the eyes of Europeans, and many American sophisticated. Washington is a rather provincial city, lacking in old world grace and charm.
A few years ago, this may have been a valid observation, but not any more. For one reason or another, the U.S. capital is rapidly developing a cosmopolitan, continental air.
For instance, when you cross a street here nowadays you get a nostalgic feeling that at any moment you might be run over by some clown in a sports car.
It used to be that an American pedestrian had to go to Paris to get hit by a sports car. That shows how far we have come in shucking off our bumpkinish ways.
It's true that the taxi drivers here haven't yet perfected the rhythmic honking technique that makes motoring in the French capital such a stimulating experience. But they are learning fast.
But what really impressed me with our progress in acquiring civic poise and elan was a public hearing I attended on a proposal before the District of Columbia Board of Commissioners to permit sidewalk cafes in Washington.
I notice as I wheel about the city that the cabbies are beginning to honk at me when my quaint old sedan stalls in the middle of the street. Time was when they simply would have given me a push.
That also is a sign that we are catching up to the Parisians in leading the good life.
Amigos, if this one passes, we are in With sidewalk cafes, Washington would become the most sophisticated metropolis east of Culpepper. Va.
The first applicant for a sidewalk cafe license is the owner of a restaurant which fronts on Pennsylvania Avenue about two blocks from the White House.
It is his notion that tourists, shoppers and commuters would enjoy sipping their Metrecal at an outdoor table, overlooking a traffic jam.
SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Chuck Morelock and
Ron Gallagher
Chuck Morelock and
Ron Gallagher Co-Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Chuck Martinache ... Business Mgr.
By Walter M. Hull
Eureka Springs, Ark., sophomore
THE PICTURE HISTORY OF PAINTING, by H. W. and Dora Janson Abrams.
THE POCKET BOOK OF GREAT DRAWINGS, by Paul J. Sachs.
No matter what his subject or method may be, an author must always keep in mind his audience; someone is going to read his book, or he has no purpose in writing it. And in keeping his specific audience in mind, the author must above all never write up or down to it. When he does this he is making less sense, making himself harder to read, and thus standing between himself and his purpose.
IN THE FIRST of these selections, The Picture History of Painting, the authors have written down to their audience so completely as to rob the book of nearly all the value it could have had. The selections and text, at least of this abridged version, seem to have been borrowed and simplified from another, better text. By saying a very little bit and saying it three times, the authors have forced themselves to leave out that which could have made their little bit meaningful.
Sachs' Great Drawings, on the other hand, follows the simple and always good rule of "say what you mean, and say as much of it as clearly and economically as possible." The work is integrated, consistent, and comprehensive. Instead of using his selection of drawings as supplements to his text, he has made them a part of it, allowing the reader to read the drawings, and to use them as the context for the words, rather than vice versa. This author, in half the wordage used by the Abrams, has said easily twice as much, because he has enough respect for his audience to believe that they can read and understand plain English the first time around. He has said what he means, no more or less, in a way that is comprehensive, and, partly because it is comprehensive, extremely clear.
THE ABRAMS DO not attempt to tell us what makes a great painting. They have instead given us the ones which they have decided are great, as though their decision were divinely inspired, leaving no room for disagreement. Sachs has given us a definition; he begins his book with it. It is not a definition on which everyone will agree, but it is a definition, and we can be quite happy to discuss what are admittedly his opinions, even though they are opinions formed in years spent as a scholar and as a connoisseur. Sachs seems to have learned from the art he loves how it is that he must talk about it; with the other authors, we are not at all sure that they are really involved in their study.
It is a shame that these disparities can be found between the two books, for their subject matter links them as companion pieces in a field which needs to be brought to the attention of those who would wish to come to know art.
*****
By Calder M. Pickett Associate Professor of Journalism
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, by Thomas Hardy. Premier (Fawcett). 50 cents.
Gloom is the dominant tone of Hardy, and he is scarcely good reading on a rainy day. Yet there are flashes of sunlight in his somber prose, and, incongruously, romantic touches that clash with the overwhelming realism of the man.
HE WAS A CONTEMPORARY of Tolstoy, Howells, and Zola. He was not as obsessed with environmental determinism as Zola and the later American naturalists, but he certainly deserves powerful consideration as a realist.
The troubles his people have in "Far from the Madding Crowd" are almost too much for anyone to bear. Farmer Gabriel Oak, the long-suffering hero, sees his sheep destroyed by the caprice of an over-zealous dog. Boldwood twice loses the love of his life, and then loses his mind. Oak, of course, also has a long and dreary path before he finally captures the hand of the heroine. By then all her other lovers are disposed of, and she has lost her enthusiasm for living.
HARDY'S HEROINE, Bathsheba, is a decidedly romantic touch in a book largely realistic. Everyone in Wessex has his cap set for her, one would gather. Bathsheba, unfortunately, picks the worst of the lot, the officer Troy, and in so doing makes possible the eventual tragedy.
Like his other rustic novels, "Far from the Madding Crowd" is full of the atmosphere of rural England. Hardy's characters are believable, and as a whole the book is marred only by touches—like the forced semi-happy ending—that belong in another genre of literature.
$$
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SPRING IN FIALTA, by Vladimir Nabokov. Popular Library, 35 cents.
Here are 13 short stories by the writer who became so famous through "Lolita." A cover blurb of this paperback attempts to lure the reader by suggesting that the story "First Love" was the foreruner of "Lolita." Maybe. It's a dull little thing about a 10-year-old boy falling for or at least being impressed by—a 19-year-old girl. "Spring in Fialta" is a beautifully written but curiously indecisive (maybe that's the whole point) story about a long-time infatuation.
There's an unhealthy quality about these tales, which appeared a year or so ago as "Nabokov's Dozen." Sorry. They have that highly arty touch of the Creative Writing student who thinks the New Critics are great. They read like Spectrum rejects. Why doesn't Nabokov write about something? Or is it square to suggest that a piece of writing have a point of view?—CMP