KANSAN Comment
Editor in Chief, Ron Yates
Business Manager, Pam Flatley
Editorial Editor Adam T. Jones
Edition Editor Robert Entriken Jr.
News Editor Joanna Wiebe
Sports Editor Bob Kearney
Ad Manager Kathy Sanders
7,001-an oddity
Featurette!
Well, sports fans, the home basketball games at Allen Field House have ended. And with it, hope springs eternal for nearly 9,000 students unable to obtain season basketball tickets.
The time for that long, long line at Allen Field House to purchase next year's tickets is just around the corner. And next year, you could be one of the lucky ones, right there in the flesh rooting our fighting Kansas Jayhawks on to victory.
This year's "Better luck next year award" goes to student 7,001 who was turned down trying and walked away swearing after spending several hours in line trying to purchase a ticket.
Poor misguided student 7,001 thought that these basketball games were his entertainment, because this was his university. 7,001-get with it baby! Until you're an alum you're only entitled to half of Allen Field House.
Besides 7,001, all home games are broadcasted on the radio. Things can get pretty exciting sitting there in your room
listening to those games.
And, 7,001, for half-time entertainment, you can sit in your room wondering what the KU Athletic department does with their cut of your student fees.
You see, 7,001-it's all a question of money. There are 15,000 available seats in Allen Field House. 7,000 are reserved for student season ticket-holders, 500 are reserved for general sale to the student body. The remaining 7,500 are open to the general alumni, and public, at a much higher price. The problem is one of profit.
Admittedly KU has a better situation for students than other universities. Students attending the University of Colorado, which now unfortunately boasts the Big-Eight Basketball Championship have only 5,000 available seats at Brewer Field House.
Yes, 7,001, there has to be a means of making more seats available to students at student prices. But, 7,001, they never promised you a rose garden here at KU and baby, you never got one. (JKD)
Readers' write
Chancellor of the University
W. Clarke Wescoe
223 Strong Hall
Dear Sir.
On March 5, 1969 you were quoted in the University Daily Kansan as saying that the guns carried by campus police are not obtrusive until attention is called to them. I agree. But attention has been called to those guns, and they are very obtrusive.
In the five years I have been on this campus, the reports of guns being drawn and used at inappropriate times by campus officers have been anything but uncommon. What more can reasonably be expected? Most campus officers are not professionals, trained in the judicious restraint of force. They are not schooled in the rights of citizens of the campus community, and in the dangers of overstepping the bounds of police authority. Rather, they are underpaid non-professionals. We cannot expect judicious discretion from them, and we surely do not, shall not, get it.
If the state of Kansas saw fit to provide this campus with a professional staff of officers. I would still argue that they should not be armed. The use of force and control tactics too often overshadows more meaningful prevention methods of law enforcement. It seems that our society finds it much easier to violently force compliance with standards of conduct, than to consider and alleviate the reasons for exceptional activity.
I strongly object to your decision to retain firearms on the KU campus. My values must somehow be different from yours. The responsibility for this University is yours, but also, in part, mine. This is my school too. And I am unwilling to so lightly rest its future and the future of its people in the hands of armed police. I had hoped that you would agree. The All-Student Council did.
To the Editor:
Larry Yackle First Year Law
In the Feb. 28 editorial, JKD bemoans the lack of "demon rum and demon fag" on campus. She asserts that "the revenue the university loses by not selling cigarettes could have been used to improve the student hospital."
From the same philosophy, the revenue the University loses by not selling beer could have been used likewise. Following this same root-if it is only the University's profit and the students' pleasure that need concern us, then surely "demon brothel" would best serve our interest.
JKD says that "the most penetrating of questions is whether or not a gentleman should offer a lady a Tiparillo cigar." A more penetrating question is whether the editor would have us be ladies and gentlemen at all.
John W. Egyed Pittsburgh, Pa., junior
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Youth & age -ia
By MIKE SHEARER
Age and experience, one can always feel safely certain, inevitably lead to one end-wrinkles and stiff joints.
No other absolute statement can be made about the products of time.
"When a famous German general, long ago, heard one of his staff officers venture the sententious remark that 'Experience is the best teacher,' the general snorted: 'Nonsense—my mule has been through ten campaigns with me, but he knows no more now than he did before the first one.'" wrote Sydney J. Harris, columnist and card-carrying middle-ager.
While mules and persons have very little in common, save their lack of reason and charm, mules, as with persons, can sometimes learn from their experience, but such is not always the case. Experience can mean nothing more than a settling of prejudices and misconceptions.
For instance, I have been typing successfully for several years on at least five publications, but since I never learned to type with more than two fingers, I have merely trained myself to do well what I do incorrectly. Were I want to improve my typing speed, I would have to unlearn my method first. Experience has taught me nothing in typing except bad habits.
Similarly, every election brings about the re-election of many tired-looking old men who have won office once again by the merits of their experience. Voters (and that category does not include my age group) are usually so impressed with the amount of time the old codgers have spent in Washington that they neglect to find out just what the old fools have been getting experience at. If experience alone were a virtue, Thomas Dodd would be presidential timber, despite his area of experience.
To say that persons between the ages of 18 and 21 have more knowledge of current events and enthusiasm for politics than any other age group (which I said a couple weeks ago because I believed it and which I repeat here because I still believe it) is not to say that young persons are superior to older persons.
The enthusiasm of youth can be as dangerous as the experience of age, depending in both cases on the direction, but if America is willing to risk the latter, it should also risk the former and let us vote.
The pomposity of youth should serve as a political deterrent only if the fatalism of age serves similar purposes.
If youth commits the crime of acting before thinking, age commits the crime of doing neither.
Leaving administration buildings unmolested and ROTC quarters unbombed, our placid elders keep "As The World Turns" turning and "Reader's Digest" regurgitating.
Placidity is the crime that pays in America, and the more campaigns the old mule has seen the bigger the payoff.
THE SILWUCKER JOURNAL
'OK, fella. Let me see your license.'