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THE SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
Tuesday, June 25, 1968
Cool it, baby
Ever since the riots in Watts in 1963, there have been what some call long hot summers. Riots tear apart the major cities of this country. They strike terror in the hearts of the citizens of cities from New York and Detroit to Lawrence and Great Bend. They have created some good, but more and more they leave only a distaste in everybody's mouth.
This summer could be the longest and hotest. It has had a premature beginning in April following the death of Martin Luther King. Many people were looking for riots and burnings and sure enough they came. No matter what Ralph Abernathy or Mrs. King said, buildings were burnt.
This week things in Lawrence have already heated up. A fire, reportedly set by an arson, destroyed the library of a center for underprivileged children in North Lawrence Thursday night. What some care to call a juvenile race fight, which led two people to the hospital for treatment, followed on Friday night.
Those who look for a hot summer will get one. But what constitutes a hot summer could be the longest a mer? More important, what causes it? The best coolant on the market today is better understanding between all the people in the human race.
Things can get worse if we look for the worse. But it is time for people to quit throwing their hands up in the air and saying 'gee, isn't it awful' and start asking what they can do. Too many people now days are too busy walking the second mile they fail to walk the first.
We live in a society of hypocrits. Too many people will give $100 to the National Society for the Advancement of Colored People and then turn around and point a gun at some Negro who wants to move on their block. Too many people are too concerned with giving money to CARE and CROP they forget the poor and down trodden of their town.
It is time to actively look at the community we live in. Will your landlord rent to a Negro or foreign student? If he would, would you live there? When was the last time you gave something beside money to the underprivileged? When is the last time that you gave a helping hand to someone who was down? And then you wonder what causes a long hot summer?
This summer is yet cool. It will stay that way if you want. But you, each day, must take a little time out from your hectic schedule and help. There are organizations of many kinds which could use you. Why not help keep things cool?
In loco parentis
Again this summer, KU is hosting more than 2,000 high school students in the Midwestern Music and Art Camp. Officials of the camp must be the parents to all of these adolescents. It is a chore that nobody can relish, yet a task which must be done successfully if the camp is to survive.
Each summer the campers are told of the "three D's" or the three basic sins. They may not date non-campers. They may not ride in an unauthorized automobile. And they may not drink any kind of alcohol or beer. This year a fourth was added because of the tragic fall last summer. No camper may endanger his life or that of another camper. A violation of any of these rules will bring automatic expulsion.
To help enforce these basic commandments, other laws have been passed to help lessen the temptation of the camper to get into trouble. But the temptations are here and college students, at times, heighten these temptations. The campers may not enter any place that sells alcoholic beverages or beer. Starting this week they may not go into the Hawk's Nest or the Trail Room.
Yet the worse problem are the KU students and high school students of Lawrence, who enter camp areas and tease them. They
vary from the boy who wants a fast pick-up to the carload of kids that drive through and yell tantalizing remarks.
It is bad enough for the campers to be away from home for six weeks. As a matter of health, to insure their eight hours of sleep, they must be in their residence hall at 9:30, six nights a week. They are away from their friends and familiar surroundings. Many drank before they arrived and will after they leave, but now they are living under a separate set of rules. And, in most cases, it is probably easier to get away with violations in front of their parents than it is camp officials.
Letters to the Editor
Sir:
In response to Kansan Review — "Cottonwood Review is good investment."
No matter how much affluence there is/isn't during these war years, calling a magazine of poetry, prose and art an investment seems terribly shoddy. I mean some of us still have our ideals.
Xerox down .25 and Cottonwood Review up .50, somehow that sits like orange juice and tepid milk and brandy and Fresca and peanut butter and pickle juice.
Regarding the questions at the end of the article my answers/guesses would be as follows: 1. No 2. Yes 3. No. Look at it this way—1. Most of the stuff written by English department·students is maudlin and childish; after all, Truman Capotes and Mark
Twains do not descend from the campanile at full moon, right? Doing the symbolism in T. S. Eliot, yet, and explaining passages from Waverly tend to clog up the creative pores, sometimes. 2. One never knows if someone might do a Big Thing with Robert Creeley (maybe a ph.d. dissertation). So why not fill the Cottonwood Review with him. 3. Employing standard capitalization in this issue seems like an effort towards 'good design'. We can certainly use some 'good design'—take a look at our architecture!
The wham-bam analysis of the poetry and prose in your review gave me the impression that it just didn't know where it was at.
Kenneth Bill Stouffer Place
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Campers have been sent home before and will be sent home again. But considering the diversified life these campers come from, the number is very minute.
Yet, the University community and the people of Lawrence should not make things worse for these campers. The campers have their own recreation, their own athletics, and their own good times. Whether it be a religious organization from Lawrence or a college student, there is no reason campers should be enticed or tormented.
NOT WHAT YOU THINK
ST. LOUIS —(UPI)— A student organization on campus at Washington University is named ORGY. A student identified the group as "Order of the Green Yarmulkes." Members wear green skullcaps and take part in the annual water and mud fight.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
"SHE'S IN ONE OF MY CLASSES —RATHER DISTRACTING ISN'T SHE?"
New Books
Awhile back, before the Nixon bandwagon began to roll along so assuredly, James M. Gavin's CRISIS NOW (Vintage, $1.65) would have been a hot commodity, for Gavin was considered "presidential timber." It still represents the thinking of another American who is not at all enamored with what he sees about him.
Gavin writes out of his military experience and thinking about the American scene. Mainly his concern is Vietnam, but he is able to relate this to other crises in America, notably the crisis in the cities. The recent assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy adds to the timeliness of this book.
The angry man of the left, Norman Mailer, has a new book. It is THE IDOL AND THE OCTOPUS (Dell, 95 cents), and it is a paperback original. Mailer flails away at what he sees as the Establishment, with its conservatism, its censorship, its extremism, its wars, its politicians. Mailer remains an angry and invigorating (and annoying, sometimes) writer.
A new work much more special in theme is Roger Shattuck's THE BANQUET YEARS (Vintage, $2.45). Shattuck deals with what he sees as the origins of the avant-garde in France from 1885 to World War I. This is solid literary and social history.
A young romantic novel—Marcia Miller's SPOTLIGHT FOR MEGAN (Dell, 50 cents). About a girl and her world in television.
A sexy novel—David Slavitt's ROCHELLE, OR VIRTUE REWARDED (Dell, 75 cents). Fanny Hill in the 20th century, says the publisher.
There's a new political novel in paperback, James D. Horan's THE RIGHT IMAGE (Dell, $1.25). It's about the Shannon family and its wealth and its boys in politics. Sound familiar? When will this genre run out? Will its timeliness be tempered by recent events?
A medical novel — Stanley Winchester's THE PRACTICE (Dell, 95 cents). The cover touts it as "the Peyton Place of the medical world." Let's hope more than that, though that will help sell it. Scandalous doings in the medical profession!
A war novel—Ray Rigby's JACKSON'S WAR (Dell, 75 cents). Rigby did that brutal one called "The Hill." The setting is Africa, the year is 1942. The hero is a tough character named Jackson. Not Andrew.
b. s. the editor
**
Last week b.s. (the editor) waded through the little known facts in the KU Student Handbook. This week, he will swap yarns which never made the student book—and probably should never make the Kansan.
The University is big in naming halls after past chancellors. Yet one chancellor seems to have no remembrance left on campus. Joshua Lippincott, who served from 1833 to 1866, has nothing named for him. The least the University could do is name the hole where Robinson Gymnasium used to stand the Lippincott Land Movement . . . or how about Josh's Jive Jig.
***
It has reported that the new Humanities Building, to be located on Jayhawk Boulevard, has already been named. It is University policy not to name any structure after a present KU staff member. The Field House was known as that for several years until Phog Allen retired. Just who is going to be the faculty member that
\* \* \*
is leaving. This is the time to go as the new building will be the tallest in Kansas.
The KU campus was built backwards . . . that is if the true purpose of Strong Hall's second floor balcony is to be used. When the yellow monster was built, it was the full intention of the architect that the University would grow toward the stadium. The plans called for a second floor porch so that the chancellor could give his blessings each morning to all the students. Now all the chancellor can bless is the $2 million Spencer Library. Who says that money is everything.
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Student protestors thought that Fraser was a state architect's flop, but nothing compares to Murphy Hall. First of all the hall is built backwards. It was the original intention to have the inside of the U shape serve as an amphitheatre. The hill on the north was to serve as the bleachers. Except the U now opens to the south.