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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, February 6, 1968
Opinion, ours and yours
Each semester brings new editorial editors, new attitudes and ideas, and a new editorial statement of policy.
We, however, can't predict our reactions toward the issues and ideas that will appear during the semester. We are sure of only one thing:
This will be a page of opinion, ours and yours.
The rest of the paper will offer only objective reporting.
The editorial page hopefully will be free of objective reporting and only offer responsible opinion.
In writing editorials, we will strive to be timely, accurate, and responsible in both our choice of subject matter and our tone of presentation.
Yet while our attitude will be one of concern for whatever we may be able to do, we will also try not to take ourselves too seriously.
We will attempt not to contradict ourselves, nor to crusade when the cause is not significant enough to justify continual attention.
Specifically, the upper left sections of this page will contain the editorial opinions of the day. The rest of the page will be devoted to any
and all opinion, regardless of our feelings on what is said.
We welcome and encourage letters to the editor, contributions by faculty members and general feedback.
We will try to supply book reviews, movie reviews, and reprints from other papers that will be interesting and possibly even, excuse the term, educational.
The quotations and editorial cartoons will be selected many times because of their relevance to whatever else is being presented.
To conclude, something we will always try to do rapidly, we hope that the editorial page will reflect not only the particular attitudes of this newspaper through its editorial editors but also the University attitudes and atmosphere.
And as for a truly interesting editorial page that offers the qualities of reader interest and readability, a sense of humor, a variety of opinion and some real substance through editorial leadership, we'll do what we can about that too.
Tune in here tomorrow, and the next day, and throughout this semester.
Just as important, let us know how you feel. Same time, same station.
—The Editorial Editors
Letters encouraged
One of the policies the editorial desk tries to honor is to print all letters to the editor. We think the letters are one of the most stimulating features of the page.
However, it is often a source of wonder to see what stirs up Kansan readers. The reactions to news events and editorials are as varied as the students. Sometimes letters are predictable, as feedback to a controversial editorial. Sometimes not. Naturally the best letters are those reasonable, authoritative, concise, to-the-point letters. It really doesn't matter whether the view is a popular one or whether it agrees or disagrees with the Kansan editorial view.
Some letters are too long. Some are incoherent and illegible.
Some praise or threaten us. However, every letter has a good chance to be printed unless it is anonymous or libelous.
Some of the letters are paradoxical, like the superspecially beligerent letter which is signed with a phony name. Or the letter which states, "You don't have the guts to print this,"—which is unsigned.
We get a lot of good letters and we enjoy publishing as many as possible. It is an opportunity any student should use to voice his viewpoint on this page.
-Diane Wengler Editorial Editor
"Any Time You're Ready, Child!"
.. quotes ..
"The American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it Capitalism, call it what you like, gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it."—AI Capone
"We must have teachers—a heroine in every classroom."— Fidel Castro
Letter to the Editor:
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"I am insulted by the persistent assertion that I want war. Am I a fool? War! It would settle nothing."—Adolf Hitler
K-State apologizes
Dear KU Pep Bond; Cheerleaders and Pom Pom Girls:
We at Kansas State University were very happy to have the Kansas University Pep Band, Cheerleaders and Pom Pom Girls attend the K-State vs. KU basketball game on Jan. 20, 1968. We were also tremendously pleased with the crowd enthusiasm that was shown at the game. It always makes a very interesting and exciting game when the crowd can be so high! This has always been the case when K-State and KU basketball teams play.
On the other hand, we are a bit concerned with the "over" enthusiasm displayed by certain members of the student body and would like to apologize for these actions.
Not recognizing your turn at time outs was in poor taste, and
the throwing of assorted objects onto the floor and into the pep band when the pep band and pom pop girls were performing. These actions were uncalled for and discoureous; we are sorry they happened.
In closing, we would like to wish your basketball team the best of luck during the remainder of the season.
Tom Jacobitz
Tom Jacobitz
Cheerleader Sponsor,
Bill Worley
Student Body President,
Karen Charbonneau
Chairman, Pep Coordinating
Council,
James Goldsmith
Head Cheerleader,
Judy Flett
Head Pom Pom Girl
Newsroom—UN 4-3646 —— Business Office—UN 4-3198
Published at the University of Kansas daily during the academic year except holidays and examination periods. Mail subscription rates: $6 a semester, $10 a year. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, KG. 660144. Accommodations, goods, services and employment advertised offered to all. Please regard to color, creed or national origin. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of Kansas or the State Board of Regents.
Managing Editor—Gary Murrell Business Manager—Robert Nordyke
Assistant Managing Editors ... Will Hardesty, Tim Jones,
City Editor ... Rich Lovett, Monte Mace, John Marshall
Assistant City Editors ... Robert Eutink Jr.
Editorial Editor ... Janet Snyder, Rea Wilson
Assistant Editorial Editors ... Diane Wenger
Assistant Editorial Editors ... John Hill, Swaebou Cona eh
Sports Editor ... Steve Morgan
Assistant Sports Editor ... Pamela Peck
Wire Editor ... Judy Dague
Photo Editor ... Mohamed Behawih
Feature and Society Editor ... Beth Gaederd
Assistant Feature and Society Editor ... Jan Vandeverr r
Copy Desk Chiefs ... Chip Rouse, Charla Jenkins, S. Allen Winchester
Advertising Manager ... Roger Myers
National Advertising Manager ... Lorraine Borng
Classified Advertising Manager ... Daryl Gutter
Promotion Manager ... Michael Pretzter
Production Manager ... Joel Klassen
Circulation Manager ... Chaul s Good ell
Member Associated Collegiate Press
Kansan movie review
'Camelot' fools the viewer
By Scott Nunley
There is simply not
A more congenial spot
For happy-ever-aftering
Than here in Camelot!
There will be no lack of satisfaction, however, until the glow of this lush production has worn away. Carefully-dubbed song and elaborately-staged spectacle fill screen and mind with beauty. Under the soel'f of the flawless performances of Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave, the viewer can well forget that none of this beautiful cast can sing a beautiful note and that the whole beautiful dream is built upon a very ugly economic slavery.
The trouble behind the fall of Elen was carefully prepared for and motivated in that famous book, but the collapse of the remarkable Arthurian paradise is not so art ulv'v handled. No one reflecting on "Genesis" will need to ask how it all blew apart. But after watching the film production of "Camelot," the thoughtful viewer will be left with the sad resolution that some prep men must have pushed a wrong button.
The question of the motivation for Camelot's fall arises only when the moviegoer demands more of his theatre than musical variety can provide. The finest musical's have always been these which combined a valid drama with their songs. "My Fair Lady's" source in Shaw's "Pygmalion" was certainly not incidental to its success on the musical stage.
"Camelot," unfortunately, had its birth in White's very undamatic novel, "The Ones and Future King." Rich and rambling, White's version of the Arthurian romance does not lend itself well to any capsulation. Disney's ani-
rated "Sword in the Stone" limited itself wisely to the childhood of the king, but the adult life of King Arthur Pendragon is far too complex a tale for "Camelot" to control.
The worst of the violations of dramatic control enters "Camelot" with the evil Mordred, Arthur's bastard and perhaps incestual son. Late into the plot, with Round Table dissension already crackling about Lancelot and Guinevere, Mordred is thrust upon the audience with no preparation. This black figure who engineers the destruction of Arthur's dream suddenly springs from a secret sore in the perfect monarch's past.
But even granted a base of fine drama, any musical must mate its flights of song most carefully to the plot. However, when the lords and ladies of Camelct burst into chorus for the rescue of Guinevere, the delicate mating becomes a most brutally strained union. First, because these people have been generally established as un-musical, as uncivilized and barbaric in comparison to our songster-herces. Second, because in the next moment, they are fighting to the death to prevent the very rescue they had wished for during their flight of song. Out of character and illegal, it is this event that precipitates the civil war and the destruction of the Fellowship of the Round Table.
So Arthur goes to his death in "Camelot" with only the most confused of reasons for the collapse of his Eden of law and justice. But in the face of cinemascopic wonder and stereophonic harmony, the happily humming moviegeer will find himself several traffic lights away before that cheated feeling creeps out to nag at him.