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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, February 15, 1968
Birds of a feather
You've heard a lot of confusion about hawks and doves lately, but consider the whole thing straightened out now.
First of all, it's not as simple as just hawks and doves. There's a whole range of our feathered friends and enemies to be considered.
After the traditional dove, a person who stands completely for peace, comes the parakeet. A parakeet is a dove who is for peace, until you push him, and then he'll suddenly peck you.
Next comes the robin, who is content to calmly pull worms out of the moist soil who are kicking and screaming all the way. The robin is peaceful until he is irritated by all this and then gives a quick jerk of his head, thus rendering the worm in such a state that he needs only a fourth for bridge. His anger gone, the robin continues peacefully.
After the robin comes the bluejay, who talks a lot of hawk-talk, which rhymes, but rarely is able to back up his views with any well-thought-out reasoning. Nobody could love a bluejay, even his mother.
The rooster is the last on the scale except for the hawk. The only difference between a rooster and a full-fledglinged hawk, since they both
believe the same convictions, is that the rooster is still a little bit chicken.
And then there is the hawk, winged warrior of the skies who seeks combat without hesitation.
There are a couple or three birds who are not exactly ranked on this hawk and dove range, but are off to one side.
The proverbial wise old owl may not be particularly old or wise but he has got enough sense to really think things over if he finds himself unsure about his hawk-dove feelings.
And, of course, there's always flocks of the dependable, consistent, unworried and unconcerned ostrich who has his oblivious head buried deeply in the asphalt of his little playground world.
The last bird is the one that is really disturbing, since he hasn't got a universally understood meaning and each bird lover has to interpret this bird for himself.
Exactly where, both foreign and domestic ornithologists ask, does the American eagle rank on a hawk-dove scale?
You tell me.
Assistant Editorial Editor
- John Hill
Letters to the Editor
ROTC math, karate
To the Editor:
Professor Mark Mandelker's recent conduct regarding the teaching of mathematics to ROTC cadets raises several interesting questions. First, does a teacher, employed by the state, have the right to decide whom he will accept as a student? Assuming that Professor Mandelker establishes that a teacher does enjoy such a right, would the same right apply to a "hawk" who, as a matter of principle, felt he could not teach a member of the SPU? Third, would not the same right apply for a segregationist who, as a matter of personal principle, felt he should not be compelled to teach Negroes?
Edward J. Paris Oakland, Calif. graduate student
To the Editor:
Concerning Joanna Wiebe's article "Coeds Study Karate," I was shocked to see how she misrepresented karate. Her lack of information on the martial arts is indicated in her misspelling of such basic terms as "Ghea" (it should be "GI"). She referred to Mr. Max Muller's brown belt as a "brown GM seat belt" and his floppy "zoot suit." I am sure Mr. Muller would be hurt to see how she really views him after his sincere efforts to show her how to defend herself from an attacker. Her article was written in a very sarcastic manner, maintaining the idea that karate is deadly—yet funny—an idea that has been erroneously maintained by different media in this country.
Having taught karate myself,
I am very aware of the serious
attitudes of other students of
karate. I feel that other black
belts probably share the same feeling that I do about her gross misinterpretations of our art. Therefore, I would like to state a few facts of which Miss Wiebe is pitifully unaware.
Many people think karate is fighting to the death, either killing or malming your opponent, but karate is a way of life; the purpose of which is to enable men to realize their full potentialities both physical and spiritual. If the spiritual side of karate is ignored, its physical aspect is meaningless. The ultimate purpose of karate is to develop the better features of human character rather than merely to strengthen human beings against physical enemies. These features can be labeled as poise, balance and mental discipline as well as a desire to feel physically fit.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
A-38
"AS AN ITEM FOR OUR STUDENT PRESS—WHAT'S YOU ENGINEERED
OPINION OF T' EARLY CLOSING HOURS FOR WOMEN?"
Many people have the idea that karate is just breaking bricks and boards. These are used in the later stages but only as one of many ways to arrive at the inner meaning of karate. The emphasis is placed on the physical aspect, stressing calisthenics and mental discipline because they are most essential to karate. Only when one reaches a certain degree of mental discipline is he (or she) ready to learn self-defense. Without this essential element, self-defense techniques are pointless. We in karate have an appropriate saying—"You can't control another person (or enemy) without control of yourself."
This is only a brief introduction to karate; perhaps Miss Wiebe will take time to gather adequate and correct information on a subject before she attempts to write an illuminating article on a subject she knows so little about and whose seriousness she cannot comprehend.
Jesse Newman Lawrence junior
...quotes..
"The uneasy thought persists that in a few years we may look back on 1677 and 1688 and call them "the good old days."
Kansan movie review
-Macon, Georgia News
'In Cold Blood' has tension but no insight
By Scott Nunlev
In one week, writer-director Richard Brooks will offer "In Cold Blood" to you, on the Kansas City screen. You will drive to see it, but you will not get me to go with you.
Since 1966, Mr. Capote's contribution to bound reportage has been infiltrating the permeable membrane of American society. You are familiar with it, of course. And the film version has been constructed with a painstaking exactness and lack of imagination that should add new pride to the term "non-fiction."
"In Cold Blood" is not, however, preachy—not usually. Nor is it flatly documentary—until Brooks must compress Capote's book. It is not boring—although 134 minutes can be deadening. "In Cold Blood" is certainly not a failure as a motion picture—not exactly.
Tension is the movie's forte. Insight runs a very soft and muffled pianissimo.
Although I did see several people leave the theatre, I must assume they had reached the point where they came in. The viewer who can remain uninvolved in Director Brooks' pattern of suspense is either too young to be attending this gripper or too old and jaded to have bothered.
One lady viewer, after the film had wound itself out, exclaimed with surprise to find the Kansas City sun shining on the afternoon sidewalk. (Dozens had hurried directly to the relief of the rest areas: if your Psychology primer could make anything of that.) On the street, it felt great not to be a Perry Smith or a Richard Hickok and just to be alive.
But. "In Cold Blood" leaves you with an unprofessional feeling of mistakes and flaws, of irritating failures you can't quickly define.
The black-and-white realism of the newsreel camera, the underplayed commonness of the stars, the simple because actual backdrops of the scenes raise "In Cold Blood" from the contrived chillers of the late, late Hitchcock. With the movie itself always in his mind, the moviegoer watches its approach, feels its shockwave rolling closer, admits the hopelessness of wishing any help from these wellknown facts.
There is the rapid commentary summarizing the events of the conclusion. There are so many faces—old reporters, young reporters, policemen—preaching you the moral of capital punishment. There is the Oedipus-photography that so simply explicates Perry's problem for you.
But most disturbing of all, you hate the anticritical emotion that rises in you as you watch Brenda Currin's fantastic job of giving a delicate intimacy to the family life of Nancy Clutter—a reaction of revulsion at eavesdropping on these obviously living people. (At first, "In Cold Blood" had seemed to be handling the question with taste.) Against every attempt to be coldly objective, you recognize doubt at the sensationalism of the final murders—doubt of the "decency" of forcing these people to go through that again for your eyes.
Somehow this is a different matter from mere realism; it is a question, perhaps, of voyeurism apart from the central issue of the film—that is, why do such senseless butcherings occur?
"In Cold Blood," of course, begs the question by removing via psychiatry the label of "senseless." Under the compulsion of his hatred for his father, Perry Smith is very obviously helpless to prevent his actions. Clearly the photography has limited this murder of strangers to revenge on a cruel parent, leaving the movie essentially hollow at its heart.
Everyone will see "In Cold Blood"—Hollywood has planned it to be one of this year's Big Ones—and everyone will react with vigor, in his own way. But you will not get me to see it again, at least not until I have decided whether what bothered me was sound criticism or mere squeamishness.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY kansan
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