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Summer Session Kansan Tuesday, June 14, 1966
"Funny, You Don't Make Me Feel Very Secure"
...And now for summer
This page wishes to assert, at this time, its position of a year ago: it's glad the regular school year is over and it looks forward to a summer of relative peace and quiet.
Now there weren't many crises this year, though some of us were introduced to a Latin expression called "in loco parentis" ad infinitum and ad nauseam. And those of us who doubted that LSD and contraceptives should be available in coin machines were called wishy-washy liberals. Doubt also was cast on us if we thought the Viet Cong was a greater menace to civilization than Chancellor Wescoe or Dean Woodruff.
BUT MAINLY it was a more peaceable year than 1964-65. Even with the new Fraser thrusting its ungainly self into the skies. Even with signs outside the Franklin Murphy convocation reading "End the War Against Viet Nam" (as Murphy talked inside about the importance of the student protest movement). Even with indignant letter-writers who equated the Inter-Century Seminar with a White Citizens' Council rally in Alabama.
Summers are kind. Even summers that begin with the wildness of nature on the rampage in Topeka and Manhattan. Even summers that make the crabgass brown by early August.
People are low-keyed, less indignant. Dress
is informal, as it has to be in this Turkish bath climate. Only on Memorial Drive, behind Strong Hall, do you sense that there are still some 20-year-olds around, as they turn the gentle roadway into a drag strip.
WE DON'T CRUSADE much on the Summer Kansan, though if there's something that should be said we'll probably say it. Right now the teletype isn't even running, and the ash trays have been emptied, and not for more than a week will we have the high school gang back with us.
We can rest a little more, and wear fewer clothes, and sit in the shade, and get in the water, and read mysteries, and watch the A's climb in and out of the cellar, and see trashy movies at the drive-in, and listen to the Sunday concerts, and wait for the tensions of fall, when we'll be hearing again about senior keys and the multiversity and the need for students to prepare their professors' course outlines.
Meanwhile, if you have letters to write, and suggestions to make, and stories to report, write, or suggest, or report. If we can get up off the grass long enough we might even try to squeeze you into the paper.
The Poor Man's William Allen White
Campus humor-of all kinds
- "Jo Ann Shank, 29, died today of heartbreak and other internal injuries," a Ball State j-student wrote during a practice session on obit-writing.
- * *
Built just north of Lover's Lane at the University of Massachusetts is a new Women's Physical Education Building, the alumni bulletin proudly announced.
- "Your spelling is atrocous" was the cartridge lead on a news story by a Syraeuse University journalism student, who was quoting a j-prof.
THESE ARE ONLY a few of the examples of innocent campus humor which the coy comedians of college communications are peddling these days.
Humor has become the stuff of campus life, even in the face of sit-ins and other protests. Perhaps it's because being deadly serious does have its funny side, even though it appears only after a second glance.
Imagine the morning-after thoughts of the egg-head headline writer of the University of Minnesota Daily, when he re-read, "Rape of Lucretia' Done With Skill and Taste."
Or the classified ad writer of the Indiana Daily Student, when he reconsidered his gem. "Help Wanted: Part or full-time male or female. Must be neat and clean. Good wages."
AND BLUSH WITH the spirited fashion editor of the Ball State News, who climaxed a rambling discourse on appropriate campus dress with "Of course, you are always well-dressed when you are wearing a bright smile."
Even cutline writers have no immunity to innocent humor. Witness the embarrassment of the Illinois State Normal Vidette. The
And the dignity of many a bylined reporter has been shattered by the slip of a limotypist digit. The Syracuse Daily Orange once bruited the intelligence that "... with a quartet from his *arternity*, he sang 'There Is Nothing Like a Dame!"
text under a picture of a visiting prof demonstrating "throwing" on the potter's wheel read, "The most interesting point taught by the potter was his method of centering the pot. His method is not often used."
BUT LET'S GET back to the classroom, for a moment. One instructor who insisted that his journalistic students read newspapers made a habit of weekly news quizzes. A couple of years ago, he asked his class at Ball State U., "What was the dramatic gesture made by the Pope to the world's poor?"
The answers he received included "advocating birth control," "He said the poor are those who will be blessed more than others," "dispensation to eat meat on Fridays," "He blessed them and made some saints" and "He supported the Anti-Poverty Bill."
The true answer was that the Pope had given his jeweled crown to the poor.
THERE ARE SOME attempts at humor that are deliberate, however, to take advantage of the circumstances. Consider the Daily Orange, against as an example. The editors once announced gleefully that a Lois Thau had been named "Miss Winterama of 1956."
Summer Session Kansan
Misusing a phrase may also result in a shattered ego for the embryo newsman. Like the Ball State News reporter who wrote proudly that "Miss America for 1963, Donna Axum of El Dorado, Ark., who will make a personal appearance on the campus for the 1964 Orient Queen Pageant, has had an active past."
THE MOST SERIOUS intentions—as with notices to set the record straight — sometimes go awry. Knowing when to stop is the best medicine for foot-inmouth disease. Share what must have been the feelings of the Buffalo State Record editor when he re-read his "Retraction: Contrary to the Sept. 30 issue of the Record, Miss — has been appointed Associate Dean of Students. Dr. — still holds the position of Dean of Students. The Record apologizes to Dr. — for any worry and discomfort this announcement may have caused him."
For 76 Years, KU's Official Student Newspaper
KANSAN TELEPHONE NUMBERS
The Summer Session Kansan, student newspaper at The University of Kansas is represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St. New York, N.Y. Class postage is paid at Lawrence, Kansas, every attendant's year except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays and examination periods. Accommodations, goods, services and employment advertised in the Summer Kansan are offered to all students without regard to color, creed or national origin.
The opinions expressed in the editorial column are those of the students whose names are signed to them. Guest editorial views are not necessarily the editor's opinions expressed in the Summer Session Kansan are not necessarily those of The University of Kansas Administration or the State Board of Regents.
Newsroom—UN 4-3646 Business Office—UN 4-3198
Still and all, the most humorous of all shenanigans on the campus must be the student newspaper headlines that "just happen" to come out with double meanings. Look for chuckles in this recent collection.
- * *
French Mademoiselle Speaks Out on US Boys
—Fresno State Collegian
Love Is an L-Shaped Room
In Which Little Is Concluded
—Valparaiso U. Torch
Nudist Marriage
Barely Lasts
Six Months
Ball State News
Is Subject of Butcher Experiment
Masculine Domination of Children
Arizona State Lumberjack
'Who's Who' Lists Professor Nutt
—Emporia State Bulletin.
Dr. Harold Love named to be Head
Of New Department of Special Education Arkansas State Echo
Dates in For Big Surprise
As Women Find Protection
—U. of Toledo Collegian
Chastity Chosen
As Y Banquet Subject
—Fresno State Collegian
—Editor and Publisher
To lecture in Thailand
Lee James Silverthorn, KU assistant professor of psychology in a research capacity, has been appointed to a United States Educational Exchange fellowship to lecture in 1966-67 at Chengmei University, Chiengmai, Thailand.
BOOK REVIEWS
Here are some thumbnails on books that you might find enjoyable reading in those hot days ahead:
First, Irwin Shaw's Voices of a Summer Day (Dell, 75 cents). It's a new book but it's a book by a declining talent. Young people and their various and sundry problems—mainly sex. A style that is considerably better than that many writers manage on the same subject.
Don M. Mankiewicz's Trial (Dell, 75 cents), a shocker of a decade ago. A vivid story about a Mexican-American youth in California, tried for murder, his trial manipulated by Communists. This one is worth a re-reading, especially for its pace and brutal drive.
Three French Comedies (Dell, 75 cents), edited by Jean Bundy, and Three English Comedies (Dell, 50 cents), edited by John Bettenbender. We mean French—the whole thing is in French—Marivaux's "Les Fausses Confidences," Beaumarchais"Le Barrier de Seville," and Musset's "Les Caprices de Marianne." For the scholar. For some readers, the others being in English will be a handicap, because the book isn't pidgin English. Here you get Goldsmith's "She Stoops to Conquer" and Sheridan's "The Rivals" and "The School for Scandal."
Joseph Mersand's volume called Great American Short Biographies (Dell, 50 cents). Mighty short, too, but maybe helpful in a pinch—Roger Williams (not the pianist, either), Washington, Jefferson, Paul Revere, Daniel Webster, Irving, Stephen Foster, Agassiz, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Edison, Charles T. Copeland, Grant Wood, Sandburg, the Wright brothers, Marian Anderson, Agnes de Mille, Carnegie, Thoreau. Now how did all of those get into one book together?
Alfred Hitchcock's A Hangman's Dozen (Dell, 60 cents), consisting of thrillers the old master (or somebody) has selected, mainly contemporary and boasting few well-known names, though you'll find Evan Hunter and Ray Bradbury here.
Agatha Christie's Murder at the Vicarage (Dell, 50 cents). Miss Marple again, and who's more fun?
- Brett Halliday's Murder Spins the Wheel (Dell, 45 cents) which is Mike Shayne, who is scarcely Miss Marple.
Luke Short's Marauders' Moon, The Branded Man and Brand of Empire (Dell, 45 cents each), three by one of the best of all western writers. The plots? Well, you see there's this guy on a horse...
And four in a new line for little sister called Maynower books (Dell, 50 cents each). Rosemary Sutcliff, who goes in for knighthood and Normans and Crusades and all that derring-do, has one called The Shield Ring. A dashing historical novel. Ellis Dillon has one called The Singing Cave (a boy finds an old cave with the bones of a Viking and an old gaming board). Phyllis A. Whitney's A Long Time Coming, in which a young girl has a romance with a young journalist and gets involved in the problems of migrant workers. Hila Colman's Julie Builds Her Castle, a girl and a feud between two brothers in Provincetown.
And you can forget about thinking till September.