Looking forward
A campaign leaflet caught in a shrub, rustles in the breeze; a poster hangs crooked on a bulletin board, an election button shimmers, discarded in the grass.
The refuse of KU's 1969 presidential campaign is still to be seen on campus. The gimmicks and sheafs of words used by the three parties to persuade and inform the voter are not longer "relevant"—EXCEPT as a means of checking progress against promises.
Unfortunately, as in past elections, the opposition parties will collapse. They will break into small factions, some bitter over their defeat, some with an attitude of "Well, we lost, so what's the use?"
Perhaps one or two of the losers will come to a more reasonable conclusion: "We lost, but we don't need to bury our heads. We can pull together and make this government the most effective student government in the history of the University. We can play a constructive role."
Such displays of political nobility, however, are often as not right from the pages of the Brothers Grimm.
This election was a hard-fought and bitter contest. Those who helped the ISP pull off what must be considered a political upset, have been assailed as SOB's and a number of campus politicos threaten to
hamper David Awbrey's moves in the senate just to "make him look bad."
(DEFINITION: Political pettiness-(1) Obstruction of progress in favor of saving political face. (2) Undermining the political policies and programs of the winner so the opposition can say "I told you so" next spring.)
So it looks like Awbrey will have his hands full just fighting off the wolves. In addition to political pettiness, he will have to deal with the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), a group of turbid goons who professed their enmity for the rights of others when they attempted to disrupt voting here last week.
Awbrey will have to check this pettiness and disorderly opposition in order to implement his party's ideas-many of which are needed on this campus. If he can't draw the opposition to his side, Awbrey will need the bulk of the student body behind him. He will need to know that he has the support of those he has been chosen to lead
If he does not receive this support, then the KU student body will have indeed earned its current reputation as one of the most apathetic herds in any progressive university corral anywhere. (Apologies to the 4,970 who took the time to vote.)
RON YATES UDK Editor-in-Chief
--concern" that this abundant energy could "be channeled into effectively"—namely, the New Jersey Street Project. The "energy" of the ISP's "energetic workers" would have been greatly appreciated last weekend on New Jersey Street. Of course, I admit that it is much more fun to attend a Pleasure Fair and paint comments on a cardboard "wall" than it is to spend a
Readers' write
--concern" that this abundant energy could "be channeled into effectively"—namely, the New Jersey Street Project. The "energy" of the ISP's "energetic workers" would have been greatly appreciated last weekend on New Jersey Street. Of course, I admit that it is much more fun to attend a Pleasure Fair and paint comments on a cardboard "wall" than it is to spend a
To the Editor:
I cannot fully express my joy in learning that the Awbrey-Bowman ticket "has that energy" and "idealism which are needed for "effective progress." As the UDK has so necessarily pointed out, energy and idealism are desperately needed commodities.
Let me suggest, however, an additional area of "meaningful
lovely day painting a house.
When I read the "Kansan Endorsement," a comment that was made by one of my fellow workers last weekend (as I was leaning over the edge of a roof to paint the eaves) came into my mind. "ISP is too busy trying to save the world to worry about Lawrence."
Dee Sutton
Goodland freshman
'What's the matter dear? You look as if you'd seen a ghost.'
Photo by Ron Bishop
Sirhan and death
By MIKE SHEARER
Should Sirhan B. Sirhan's sentence of death ever be carried out, he will have been the victim of an assassin. The assassin will be you and I.
The murder we are to commit has been ordered by the jury in California.
There is probably no such thing as an honest murder, but if one were to compare the killing of Robert F. Kennedy and the killing of Sirhan B. Sirhan, the former would be the more honest. Sirhan murdered from hate, and he admitted his murder. You and I are murdering for justice, and the irony is that justice requires no such murder.
Justice requires no eye for an eye. Justice requires no tooth for a tooth.
Justice is what you and I have decided to call our killing spree which we are committing in execution chambers wherever condemned men are being put to death. What is really being executed is not justice at all, because Robert F. Kennedy's death can not be justified. What is being carried out is a bloody thirst for vengeance, an assertion of our power.
Any conviction should be the result of the jury's deciding that the accused is guilty. Any sentence should be the jury's concern for the safety of society and the rehabilitation of the convicted. Sirhan would be no threat to society behind bars.
Someday, not only will you and I overcome the need for lynching-type "justice," but we will have developed prisons into institutions where killers can be studied by psychologists and sociologists. Simultaneously, our convicted killers will be treated for their afflictions. Legal convictions will be viewed as barbarism, much as we now view witch burning.
For the present though, you and I are the dishonest killers. The death sentence was passed in our name if we believe, and I believe we must, that every man is responsible for his nation's policies and actions.
"I had hopes the circle of violence would end here," Sirhan's lawyer said, "but it didn't."
You and I are on this side of the circle.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
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