4
Monday, April 14. 1975
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the editors.
opinions of the writers
No to Viet war aid
It is difficult to understand President Ford's request of almost $1 billion in emergency military and economic aid for South Vietnam. In beating his head against a stone wall, he seems to have become deaf
Congress has made it clear to most of us that it is against further military aid. Listen closer, President Ford. Even relatively conservative members such as Sen. John McClellan, D-Aark, have come to realize that further military aid would only prolong the carnage in Indochina. Listen to Sen. McClellan, Mr. President.
The majority of American people, according to public opinion polls, is opposed to further military aid. Listen to us. President Ford.
The South Vietnamese people, and a sizable portion of the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam, no longer seem to think the Thieu government is worth fighting and bleeding for. President Thieu won't listen to the Vietnamese people, Mr. Ford, why won't you try?
A classmate of mine, a native of Da Nang, South Vietnam, has told our class that he, and he thinks most other Vietnamese, want only for the killing to stop and for the Thieu government to be removed.
So why won't the President listen to the voices calling for an end to our part in the hostilities? Perhaps his party's leaders have assured us of the other allies that we
are true to our agreements. But making a grandstand play like his Thursday night "State of the World" speech isn't the way to reassure our
If his speech was meant to frighten the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong and make them more receptive to negotiations, the President wasted his time. If we learned anything in Vietnam, it was that the "enemy" met force with more force and hardened resolve.
If the speech was planned to show that the President was trying to save Vietnam while Congress betrayed an ally, I think the President is mistaken. The American people won't be drawn into a bitter and irrational debate over "who lost Vietnam."
You were partially right in your speech, President Ford. You used many adjectives like "awful, terrible and disastrous to describe how the situation won't be transformed into peace by more bullets and bombs.
You were right, Mr. President,
when you said, "Let us start
a new experiment and realize
the blunders we've made in
Vietnam. Let's not prolong them.
We tried bombing Vietnam "back to the Stone Age." Let's not try that solution" again. It is too like Hisr's "final solution" for the Jews.
Craig Stock
BY JOHN BROOKS Contributing Writer
Plant revolution blooming
There's a new revolution on campus. It's a green revolution and it's growing all over the place.
A few years ago, students were rebelling against tradition and the establishment. They advocated and talked about guerrilla warfare, bombing and burning.
Today, students are conducting botanical warfare against gloomy and drab apartments, houses and rooms in residence halls. Instead of self-proclaimed revolutionaries, botanists are proclaimed botanists. Instead of about homemade bombs, students are talking about plants.
Spring seems to have only added to this botanical revolution. Trees, shrubs, herbs, flowers and vegetables are rapidly multiplying throughout the city.
There was a time when marijuana was the only plant that students had any interest in cultivating. But now, students try to grow practically weeds, including exotic weeds.
The spring offensive has already resulted in a number of new varieties of plants introduced into the community by outside agitators. There are also reports that some of the hard-core radicals of the FBI investigated by the FBI Government officials want to determine whether the green revolution in this country has any doctrinal ties to the "Green
"YOU DO UNDERSTAND WE MEAN WELL?"
Revolution" that occurred in Communist China last year.
It is also rumored that the CIA is trying to subvert the movement in this country by a plant killing chemical.
The revolutionary movement in Lawrence contains students who have had little or no training. It is also known that many of the members of the movement are rank amateurs who have killed more plants than they have kept
Other amateurs in the movement have tried to impress their more knowledgeable superiors by making exaggerated claims of unrestricted success and failure.
One person said he doesn't have to feed or water his Spider plant because it claws around his apartment at night and finds its own food. He added that he can eat as much as from getting too large—he doesn't want to be one of its victims.
Another person claimed that her Rattail cactus was eaten by a neighborhood cat.
Amateurs are also known for doing crazy things with plants. One budding secretary put one of her hands on his head to keep them from getting burnt
Or how about the guy who carries an umbrella plant to class whenever it looks like rain? Another person went so far as to send her Old Man cactus to a nursing home where she thought it would receive better care.
when he put them out in the sun.
Another person took her Freckle-face plant to a dermatologist.
Superstitutions and rumors also abound in the lower ranks of the revolutionary forces. One, a Purple Passion vine because she would increase his sexual prowess. One girl purchased a one because she was afraid of being possessed by her Devil's ivy.
There are a few people in the revolution who actually know what they are doing. They trade and exchange stem and leaf cuttings with other people as if they were stocks and bonds.
Some of these backroom botanists seem to have the ability to grow plants that are unique among the knowledgeable of the proper levels of light, heat, moisture and nutrients necessary for ever plant growth. Some of them differ even between a Zebrina Pendula
Quadricolor and a Tradescantia Fluminensis Variegata.
They handle their plants with tender loving care. Some people give their plants names and talk to them at least once a day to keep them happy. Others play with them, dig in their plants, give them bites at least a week and pay for planters when they're away on vacation.
Some of the more avid revolutionaries grow plants in practically everything. Terrariums, flower boxes and dish gardens have been longtime favorites. But why would anyone want to use their bathbath for a floating garden?
Hanging containers and decorative flower pots have really hit the big-time on campus. Just look at any residence hall and you're bound to see at least one room with five or 10 plants artfully displayed in the window.
Of course there are hazards to having hanging plants. One person had a beautiful plant hanging over his stereo set. Unfortunately, when he peeked through a hole in the bottom of the pot and shorted out his stereo.
There was another case where a lady had seven or eight
plants hanging in one corner of her living room. The weight of the plants eventually caused the ceiling to collapse on her dog, which was sleeping underneath. But these are just a few risks one takes as a member of the revolution.
Many of the leaders of the revolution try to evade surveillance by living in tropical rain forests or jungles camouflaged to look like ones. One house when returning from spring break, had to use a machete to cut his way into an otherwise impenetrable mass of tangled vegetation—his apartment. It was while he was on break his waterbottle had sprung a leak.
There are a few constructive and realistic approaches toward fulfilling some of the worthy objectives of the green revolution. Some people are planning to circulate a petition to reduce the intensive care unit in Walking Health Center with all the equipment necessary to nurse all plants back to health.
Other students are prepared to protest the cutting of grass on campus by the buildings and grounds crews.
Book tarnishes JFK's image
By STEPHEN BUSER Contributing Writer
John F. Kennedy isn't exactly the saint the American public has pictured him to be, based on revelations about the former President in Benjamin Bradlee's book "Conversations with Kennedy." Abuse of power, earthy language and attribubtful characteristics attracts rich and powerful Richard Nixon are apparently apoprots of President Kennedy's hint in the White House as well.
Bradlee, executive editor of the Washington Post, wrote the book with the aid of notes he had written to his fellow Excerpts from "Conversations" in this month's issue of Playboy indicate not only a sense of perfidy on Bradlee's part, but also some washing information about the beloved Kennedy brothers.
"Patton asked me, 'Why is it all the telephones of all the steel executives in the country are
While toasting Atty. Gen.
Robert Kennedy at a dinner
party, the President referred to
a telephone conversation with
Tom Patton, president of
Republic Steel;
being wapped; and I too num that I thought he was being wholly unfair to the attorney general and that I was sure that it wasn't true. And be asked me the returns of all the steel executives in the country are being scrutinized? and I told him that, too, was wholly unauthorized by the attorney general and asked him why he was tapping the telephones of all the steel executives . . . and the attorney general told me that was wholly unauthorized by the President then added, Of course, Patton was right."
Bradlee also wrote about a conversation between Ted Kennedy and the President of the United States quoted as saying, "Some pipeline I have into the White House. I tell him 1,000 men are in my office and I'm men out of work in Fitchburg . . . and there's another
BRADLEE FURTHER quotes President Kennedy as saying of steel executive adversaries: "They (deleted) us, men." And then he them and "We're going to tuck it to them and screw 'em."
600 men out of work in Springfield. And you know what he says to me: "Tough s.t."
AS FOR THE possible dumping of Johnson, a "riverboat gambler" as Kennedy referred to him, the President said, "That's preposterous on the face of it. We've got to carry Texas in '64, and maybe Georgia."
After the two had attended a party on the Potomac and had headed for another day of recreation at Camp David, Kennedy said to Bradlee, "Do you think you could get used to this kind of life? Pretty hard to take, isn't it?"
The intimate conversations depict a man, a Democrat and a Catholic, who might easily qualify as a politician in the 21st century on the day of today's aggressive news magazines. President Kennedy confided to Bradley that billionaire J. Paul Getty had only paid $500 in income tax one year. When asked about tax reform to the Obama administration, President replied, "Maybe after 1864."
have been responsible for making sure that it would be Kennedy in the White House in 1960 and not Richard Nixon. Bradlee reports that Kennedy had called Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago to find out whether he would win in Illinois, but the real state in the 1960 election. "Mr. President, Kennedy quoted Daley as saying, 'with a little bit of luck and the help of a few close friends, you're going to carry Illinois.'"
Perhaps the most amazing conversation recalled by Bradlee was the one that may
JOHN F. KENEDY didn't have to worry about mysterious tape recordings of his intimate conversations; he had Benjamin Bradlee for a friend. "Conversations" seems to have involved Kenedy wasn't the Simon Pure figure in American politics that he was made out to be. I wonder what revelations would be made if we had conversations, on tape or paper, of Sam Erwin, Daniel Inouye, Ted Kennedy, George McGovern and our other guests out that Richard Nixon and Caren't the only questionable characters that have spent time in Washington.
Writer professes love for baseball
Bv JAMES J. KILPATRICK
I did a terrible thing the other day. I delivered myself of a television commentary in which—how it hurts to write these words!—in which I suggested, may the Lord and my father forge me, in which I suggested that if the moguls of
Readers respond
To the Editor:
"Institutional Racism"
strikes again, but this time in a more touching force. After reading Thursday's Kansan story on the four black KU men who fought to undermine meadmanearm stemming from the incident at Lewis Hall, it is hard to accept the verdict.
First of all, Mike Elwell, Douglas County Judge, should reassess his judgment of the attack than an act of institutional racism at work. Although this act of racism supposedly wasn't intentional, it nevertheless was intentional to the black women involved.
I personally put a great deal of blame not on Elwall, although he failed to see the irony of it all, but on the Lewis Hall staff and I have felt that this is which should have never let this issue leave their jurisdiction.
From what I understand of the issues involving the four black women and two white women, the issues and testimony are very inconsistent, to say the least. Because of these inconsistencies in testimony, who
Student decries 'racist' convictions
is correct in saying who's right and who's wrong?
In a society based on inequalities and deficiencies, this judgment was based solely on personal factors. Why Elwell made this decision, regardless of whether he had pressure from legislators. This kind of judgment is imbedded in the individual's experience. Until we as individuals—black or white—are able to deal with incidents such as this with a certain objectivity, I see no need for democracy in this country.
An estimated 400 million men,
women and children face
starvation in Asia, Africa and
Latin America. Worldwide crop
failures and inflation have been
severe, and for teeming
countries the search for something to eat is a search for life itself.
Empty plates
Eugene Lathan Omaha Senior
To the Editor:
I appeal to your readers to save the lives of some of these people by a simple, meaningful
act: skip one meal a week, or serve smaller portions or less expensive foods, and send the money saved to CARE'S emergency EMPTY PLATE campaign.
Empty plates here will fill the empty plates of many starving families overseas. Such contributions will enable our exporters to feed more than they are already feeding in some of the hardest-hit areas. We will also be able to send more seeds, tools and so much so hungry people can grow the food they desperately need.
I hope many of your readers will be moved to make this crucial weekly act of self-denial and compassion. Donations may be mailed to CARE World Hunger Fund, Room 15, 3600 Broadway, Kansas City, Mo. 64914, lhc. too; that civic clubs, churches, and other organizations will deal with Care Empty Plate" pledge-and-contribution envelopes in your area.
Thousands overseas are dying of starvation every day. Time is of the essence.
baseball don't jazp up the grand old game, baseball will follow in the footsteps of the old soldier. It will slowly fade away.
Executive Director CARE
Frank L. Goffie
On the statue
To the Editor:
shouldn't the headline on you April Fool's photograph of the four-non-ton pterodactyl at the entrance to Disney World have read: "Strong Hall Gets the Bird?"
To the Editor:
SUA Forums
T. C. Pensabene
Bethpage, N.Y., Graduate
Student
I was pleased to read Craig Stock's editorial in the April 9 Kansan, and to realize he shares my concern for obtaining good speakers of general interest next year at KU. I will be chairman of the SUA Forum committee for the SAU meeting we have taken steps to assure that we have sufficient funds and are now finalizing our budget. That means that next week I shall begin to cast about for speakers.
To the Editor:
Although I enjoy my work, I encounter three problems: 1-
Eliminating third rate speakers
("Watergate doorman's wife tells all!") and magic shows from consideration. "Watergate does not primarily is a good speaker of general or topical interest whom the students would like to host; and 3-Coordinating dates for which the speaker would be available during classes and other scheduled events.
ANYONE WISHING to help with numbers 1 and 3 is invited to attend next fall's SUA membership meeting. But I would welcome student suggestions for item No. 2. Faculty suggestions are very welcome as well. If you know the speaker you would like to have here, please look up you phone 864-3477, the SUA office? They'll jot it down and get it to me.
To close, let me just say that with our goal of serving students, and with the budget we have, I think the Forums Committee exactly all the effort for the college. And with student suggestions, we'll be able to serve this need more even fully. Thank you.
Brad Bradley
Brad Bradley
Lawrnece Sophomore
IT IS DIFFICULT to explain why I said these awful things. Perhaps the commentary resulted from a high fever, left over from a bout of flu. More likely, it was the devil's work. In some inexplicable way, you can throw a bean ball at your traditionalist readers: Keep *em* loose. Don't let them crowd the plate.
In any event, in my madness I actually proposed a gin fizz gimmick: Score two runs, I proposed, instead of one, if a runner steals home or makes home on a squeeze bunge. George F. Will, my brother conjured the studio when I taped this outrage. He was crying "Bolshevik!" and "Community!" and other such insults. When I came up with the squeeze bunt bonus, he fainted dead away and had to be revived with spirits of malt. The Sunday, Washington Post writer Shirley Povich gave me a hiding I richly deserved.
Now, George Will is a baseball mit. He does not adorn his study, as the rest of us do, with paintings of Calhoun, and Genesis Bentley tends to frame photographs of Ernie Banks. George is a Cubs mit. he has to be crazy. By contrast, I am merely a loving fan of the grandest game of them all. My love for baseball grace. MY OWN LOVE affair with baseball goes back to Oklahoma City in the 1920s. My father was in the lumber business, selling fencepeats rallyway ties and bridge flooring. When he passed away, he was a new ballpark, down by the reservoir, he contributed some of the
There were giants in those days. It is true, as Gibbon remarked, that men tend always to exalt the past and to deprecate the present. But verily, it was something special to grow up in the time of Ruth and Gehrig and Foxx. In my mind, these were most Cardinal fans. Our heroes were Ducky Meddy and John Mize and the Dean brothers. During the 1934 Series—I was 13 at the time we almost expired in exultation.
BASEBALL THEN WAS truly the national pastime. Nothing else touched it. Sure, we kept up with Walter Hagen and later with Gene Sarazen in golf, with Bill Tidion and later Ferry in tennis. We hated Max Schmeling and we pitted poor
heavy timber and wound up with a lifetime pass to a box behind the Indians' dugout. Every afternoon, in season, he will use a knife to keep score with a slim gold Eversharp pencil—why would I remember that after all these years?—and he taught me early some of the subtleties and this is most subtle and demanding game.
Primo Carrera. High school football was an autumn passion. But baseball for a boy was the be-all and end-all.
At the risk of further heresy, perhaps an expression of sorrow may be forgiven. Major league attendance dropped off a little last year. Because of the disappearance of so many, minor leagues, total attendance at professional baseball continues even though the speed are the new obsessions. Football, basketball, hockey, auto racing—all these seem to have greater appeal.
TRUE, BASEBALL has its times of tedium. There is not much zing in three-up, three-down. But no other game offers the suspense of the lonely duel and men on base. This is the stuff of which Cameloet was made—skill, and nerve, and grace, and sweet dreams of pennants loudly rippling in centerfield. Bless you, Brother Will, I would hear him crash by senseless innovation—but the game's very survival may depend upon the gentle administration of some tender, loving care.
(C) 1975 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
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