Guest Editorials
Sex education in schools
By ANDY LAUGEL Summer Kansan Reporte
Summer Kansan Reporter
Those violently opposed to sex education in the schools often raise cries of "animal" during their denunciations.
If vigilantes want to prevent that, they are too late.
"Sex education will turn my Johnny into an animal," they cry,
Johnny happens to be an animal. He was born one.
He is probably one of the better examples of all-round animalism on earth. He has fair mobility and extraordinary finger agility; he obtains and digests food easily and has sufficient muscle power to obtain it with; he has fairly safe and regular mating habits, and he can live in varied environments or move out of them when he needs to.
Johnny sounds like a safe bet in the animal kingdom. He will be around for a while.
But Johnny does something
that makes him an animal with a difference. He thinks.
And his thinking has gotten him further than he could go without it.
He has built mountains, changed the courses of rivers, the growing seasons of crops; he has deeply affected the existence of his fellow animals.
He has discovered things of deep beauty: the rhythm of the stars, the breathing earth and the icy-hot pains of love. Johnny has come a long way by thinking. And sound thinking has never hurt him. But he becomes a strange and terrible creature when his thinking is twisted by seemingly very natural things inside him—things like pain, ignorance, lust and fear.
Those opposed to sex education say that Johnny will be overcome by lust and frightened by it if it's introduced to him.
Johnny as badly as his ignorance of it will.
But lust will not frighten
Johnny operates on personal knowledge more than any other animal on earth. When he discovers something he doesn't understand, it frightens him.
Both fright and ignorance will warp Johnny and those around him—and twisted humanity has an awesome power for destruction.
Johnny must be able to think soundly-without the fears of ignorance or guilt.
Sex education will not solve Johnny's problems—but the lack of it will be the cause of some of them.
It is too late to keep Johnny from being an animal.
The rhythms inside him and the pulsing of his blood and the music in his ears are all animal. Johnny needs to know these rhythms, this music. Knowing is important. That's what makes Johnny a different sort of animal.
Letter to parents
By JANE GLAZER Summer Kansan Reporter
Dear Mom and Dad.
When I got your letter yesterday I was shocked. I have always considered you open-minded and liberal—but I guess I was wrong.
In the very first line of your letter you stated "how shocked you were" when you found out that Sue had to get married. You also said that you were so surprised, because she was "brought up right." I was surprised, too, but I know that you are wrong in your thinking. She was not "brought up right."
Sure her parents gave her everything she could want materially, but when it came to instruction in morals they just "forgot." Sue's parents gave her love
—but they forgot to tell her the facts of life—and she had to learn just like the rest of us, from one another and "true confession" magazines. Is that any way to learn?
We all tried to get the right education, and do what we thought was right, but sometimes I guess we didn't—and I guess in this case Sue didn't.
So, here's the situation. You and most of the parents your age, criticise us for our actions, yet fail to do anything about it. Why? Your most violent action on the subject was your opposition to the sex education in the schools program. Most of the reasons for the opposition was that you "taught sex in the home" and you didn't feel a need—or want—to teach it in the schools.
I am not saying that if we had been taught sex education in school none of the pregnancies would have happened or we would have all been perfectly straight people, but it sure would have helped. Ignorance breeds "wrong," and too many of my friends didn't know right from wrong.
Well, now that I have "chewed" you out I hope you are upset. The matter of morality is one to be upset about and I think parents have been "sitting" too long. I hope that you get out and take action on the sex education question. It is so important. Too many parents don't "bring their children up right."
Take care and write. I love you.
Jane
Interpretation of 'Black Power'
By WILMA MOORE Summer Kansan Reporter
It seems the interpretation of Black Power has been accepted in several different ways. It is necessary to bring black history up to date and to put the meaning of Black Power in the proper perspective.
Black Power, unfortunately,
is frequently connected with
destruction, burning and looting
However, Black Power in the
mind of the black man means
—among other things—being
able to buy a house anywhere
he chooses; being able to get
any job he desires if he has the
qualifications; being able to go
into any restaurant or business
and receive respect and courtesy;
being able to get the same
classroom grade as the white
student for the same effort put
forth; and being able to worship in any church of his choice without receiving the white's "get-out" look. These are among the important factors behind the meaning of Black Power.
Black Power is not only being able to do these things with equal standards, but it is thinking black. Thinking black is the black people with their natural hair styles and their Afro clothes, giving the Black Power salute and taking a joy in blackness as exaggerated as the shame of blackness has always been in White America.
Thinking black is not being interested in guns or going back to Africa, but the black man separating in spirit before he can integrate in fact—that he must break his old ties of dependency on whites. The black man must develop political and economic independence and
then move for integration as a unit of equals.
Despite this citizenship, the black man was still accorded semi-slave status ... plowing the white man's fields, tending to the white man's housework, clothes, children and kitchen. He was also denied equality of opportunity in employment and education.
The spread of black thinking should not surprise anyone. The black man in America has never been permitted the luxury of forgetting that he was black. He was ripped out of the culture of Africa, shipped to America in chains and freed from slavery at last—to become not quite a free man but a second class citizen.
Because the black man is still segregated, poorly housed, shortchanged educationally, without jobs and all but shut out of business and economics, one can see things have not greatly changed.
By Dick West - UPI Columnist
WASHINGTON — For a long time I had some misgivings over spending $24 billion to land a man on the moon. But I no longer feel that way.
There remains, however, a sliver of doubt that the artifacts which the astronauts will leave behind when they return to earth are entirely adequate for the occasion.
My reservations about the lunar program were swept away by this week's announcement that the Apollo 11 astronauts planned to deposit on the moon's surface a silicon disc bearing the names of 77 members of Congress and Vice President Agnew.
Even if nothing else were accomplished, this somehow would make it all seem worthwhile.
Now ask yourself this: When you go somewhere, how can you always tell whether someone else has been there already?
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Executive Stan
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The opinions expressed in the editorial columns are those of the editorial staff of the newspaper. Guest editorial views are not necessarily the same as those of the editor's. Any opinions expressed in the Summer Edition are the opinions of the University of Kansas Administration or the Kansas State Board of Regents.
How Can You Tell?
Answer: If man has been in that particular spot before, there will be a chewing gum wrapper lying around some place.
Very well. In order to make America's space feat unmistakably clear to posterity, NASA should have arranged for Neil Armstrong to drop a gum wrapper when he descends from the lunar module.
THE SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
Not knowing they were transported in an unmanned vehicle, future lunar explorers who discover these items could easily conclude that Russia beat the United States to the moon.
America's claim of having achieved the first moon landing could have been further protected by having Col. Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. flick a cigarette butt into a nearby crater.
As a result, Black America is determined to be free. Blacks will do their thing ... they will find their identity. They will understand who they are and that power derived from a sense of dignity is worth the effort. Blacks will continue the pursuit of education and knowledge. The overwhelming majority of Black Americans will work—with help from whites—to change the system.
Terrestrial Souvenirs
That vehicle may well have contained a Soviet flag, a peace plaque and silicon disc bearing the names of 77 members of Soviet Presidium.
And just to be on the safe side, it might also have been wise to have equipped the astronauts with a popsicle stick and to have changed the wording on the plaque to read: "Kilroy was here."
The Lighter Side Leave a sign
In addition to the disc immortalizing the aforementioned lawgivers, the terrestrial souvenirs will include an American flag and a peace plaque.
Whites must do their thing—individually—they must purge themselves of all racial prejudices. Whites must accept the fact that blacks are determined to be free, deserve to be free and the whites must work at all levels to help the blacks secure this freedom. For if Black America is not free neither is White America.
I'm not suggesting these items aren't appropriate. But when you are planting evidence of man's first visit to the moon, you should make certain that future moon visitors will recognize it.
What I'm leading up to here is the possibility that Russia may try to steal the credit from the United States with the unmanned vehicle it sent to the moon earlier this week.
"The vice president is really hurting. He has to buy his wife $600 dresses and she can only wear them three or four times."
Simon and Garfunkel's words in their song "America" are quite effective in characterizing our feelings—the feelings of today's youth.
WORCESTER, Mass.—A bartender commenting on a new change in city regulations that permit women to sit at bars with men:
Campus turmoil, drugs and draft card burnings make the older generation cry out in alarm that today's youth is "lost." But we know we are lost—lost, confused, tormented and unsure.
Campuses in turmoil
WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leader Everett M. Dirksen, talking about the need for a pay raise for Vice President Spiro T. Agnew:
By MARY AGUIAR
"Kathy, I'm lost," I said,
though I knew she was sleep-
"Women on the bar stools will cause a lot of arguments and fights. Let's face it—any woman who sits at a bar is no good."
It is this confusion that we are trying to clear up by examining values and institutions established long ago that are not applicable today.
"I'm empty and aching and I don't know why."
Quotes -
"They (the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong) have not said they don't want to negotiate. But so far they have not come around to discussing the issues with us."
PARIS—A spokesman for the U.S.-South Vietnamese negotiating team at the Paris peace talks on the prospects for a start of serious peace talks:
McCHORD AFB, Wash.-South Vietnamese ambassador Bui Diem, addressing returning U.S. soldiers from Vietnam:
"The time has come for the South Vietnamese to realize that the more we grow in strength, the more responsibility we must face."
We are coming up with emptiness and hollow aching as the deeper we search for answers and the closer we get to truth—the stronger the wall of confusions becomes.
The Vietnam War is not the only cause of our unrest. If it ended tomorrow we could not turn from our search for a relief from our aching. Vietnam and its threat to us made us critical of its value but it has opened our eyes to the whole country and the institution we know as American society.
We don't like what we see. The deeper we delve into the problems, the more contradictions we find, contradictions between the values our parents instilled in us and the values of society as a whole.
We were told to love our neighbor—not just the family in the next house—but mankind in general. Picking up a newspaper or a book we read about a little Negro girl, Mary Louise Baker, lying on a Southern street after being hit by a car. Why did she die? Was it because an unknowing person called a "white" instead of "negro" ambulance? We can't ask this question and be satisfied. We have to dig deeper into the causes. We have learned to question.
We're not finding the answers—but we're trying. Right now we are seeing—really seeing—what American society and the world has become. What we see is confusing us and we are still lost—but we're searching.
Drugs, rioting, violence—these things we are stumbling against. They will pass when we begin to see clearly—perhaps when society stops contradicting its values. As a song by John Lennon and Paul McCartney says:
"I saw a film today, oh boy.
The English army had just won the war.
A crowd of people turned away. But I just had to look
Having read the book ...”
We—our generation—have opened the book. Never will we be able to close it.