Page 2
University Daily Kansan Friday, March 15, 1963
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
WU Compromise
A workable compromise finally has emerged from the political bickering about taking Wichita University into the state educational system.
The amendments accepted Tuesday by the Ways and Means Committee of the Kansas Legislature stay within the limits set by both sides. The amended bill would make WU a little less than a fully independent university but considerably more than a subsidiary or extension of the University of Kansas. As an "associate of the University of Kansas," WU would submit its budget to the KU chancellor for "comments and recommendations."
THIS AMENDMENT would not give the KU chancellor veto power, but it would give him a fair chance to comment on the educational projects that will be competing for the state's money. With the KU chancellor acting in an advisory capacity, the real control rests with the Board of Regents, which should be best fit to consider the overall educational needs of the state. This assures that WU will not have to take a back seat and accept the leftovers after KU and K-State have taken the lion's share.
The other part of the compromise says that "The University of Wichita shall be entitled to carry on . . . all academic programs now specified
within its published catalog and graduate bulletin." This meets the minimum demands Wichita has made to insure that its university will not be made an extension in fact even though it may be known by a more acceptable name.
THE BOARD OF REGENTS would have the "power to prescribe the standards for admission of students and to fix student fees, the curriculum, the degrees and certificate programs..." While keeping the best interests of the whole state in mind, the regents could accept or reject any future expansion of WU.
These amendments permit a blend of cooperation and competition that would provide for a joint effort to educate the youth of Kansas while maintaining just enough competition to keep everyone on their toes.
Both Chancellor Wescoe and Harry F. Corbin, president of Wichita University, have expressed wholehearted approval of the amended bill.
THE KANSAS legislators who worked out this compromise are to be complimented for skillfully performing the function that is the heart of American government. They took a good idea and widely divergent opinions, and put them into a form that should be acceptable to both sides. Dennis Branstiter
Biblical Spectaculars
Well, sir. I'm stuck in this hick town overnight—a real cider and sow-belly junction—and the old gal who runs the one drug store doesn't have Variety or Billboard and never heard of a racing form. So I go back to the motel room and finally I pick up one of those Bibles you see lying around everywhere and start thumbing through it to see what it's like. Almost right away I strike oil.
I come across this part about the two sisters, Aholah and Ahlibab, who came out of Egypt and were real floozies, and I say to myself, "How did the movies miss them?"
These Bible pictures are going big, you know, what with Solomon and Sheba, and Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. And I say to myself if I can't get a script on Aholah and Aholibah that will have the studios running after me with their fountain pens then I ain't no writer.
THE WAY I see it, these babes are after some nice young king who has a sweet girl friend. This king ought to have a big name, so I think I'll make him David, and with David as a hero you got a ready-made heavy—Goliath. This Goliath could be any size between Wilt the Stilt and King Kong.
Well, this sweet girl, Bathsheba—sort of a Shirley Jones type—is on her way with her caravan to marry King David. But Aholah and Aholibah, who are spying from Mount Ararat, send smoke signals to King Goliath who rushes a big army to capture Bathsheba. This should be a real colorful scene.
They haven't made any western spectaculars recently, so there must be a lot of Indians who will work cheap, and if Indians know how to ride around a wagon train they can sure ride around a camel train, and, besides, if you put a sheet around an Indian he looks just like an A-rab and that ought to save on make-up.
Well, the A-rabs scrag Bathsheba's relatives and she and all the girl slaves get their dresses torn from here to there in the fight and are carried clawing and screaming off to King Goliath's palace where the orgy is just getting underway.
ONE THING about a Bible movie—you gotta kill a lot of people. You know, squunched under the chariot wheels, eyes bugging out as they get speared, babies bashed against boulders, etc. If you have some old gaffer in a beard preaching the kids all go out for popcorn. Action is what holds them in their seats.
Of course, the orgy is the big scene. There's Goliath up there on a huge gold throne and Aholah and Aholibah draped around him wearing a couple of strings of beads and the hall is filled with tables sagging under roast bullocks and pheasants and a jillion people are guzzling and munching and smooching.
Things start out easy with lots of jugglers and sword swallowers and fire eaters. Then Salome comes on with her Dance of the Seven Veils. Only I've got a switch. She don't have but six. Then you bring on 300 nautch dancers and then 500 cootch dancers and then about 1,000 belly dancers. This pulls in the high school crowd. If there's enough word around the high school corridors your picture's in. You can't make a buck without the kids.
Finally, King Goliath, who's laughing like a tax collector and slobbering wine down his chin, shoves Aholah and Aholibah away and orders Bathsheba to come forward and sit on his lap. She won't. So, as they say in the Good Book, he gets wroth and fires up a huge statue of Moloch, his god, which is really a cast-iron furnace. And one-by-one he has his men tossing in Bathsheba's screaming slave girls until Bathsheba gives in and starts for his lap.
AND JUST then—whammo!—down through the roof come David and 5,000 of his soldiers. You see, while everybody was busy with the orgy, David lined up 5,000 catapults outside the walls and his whole crowd came over together. Well, there's the awfulest fight you ever saw with good close-ups of beheadings, disembowelings, garot-tings and skewerings. Goliath tries to brain David with the golden throne, but he can't lift it. It seems that while he was ogling Bathsheba his ex-girl friend, Aholah, sneaked up and snapped off his hair, which, as everyone knows, was why he was strong. So David plunks him right through the noggin with a slingshot.
In the meantime, the Lord has gotten fed up with this wicked city so He sends a huge rain and you can get some great process shots as Aholah and Aholibah are swallowed in the flood and the pillars are washed out and the ceilings fall and all the evil are swept away. David and Bathsheba are caught, too, and they're just about to go down for the third time when along comes Noah's Ark. So you get a big clinch on deck and a sort of comic fade-out as a hippo and a giraffe smile at the happy young couple.
THE MOVIE industry is doing a great thing bringing these important Bible stories out to where everyone can see them. It's especially good for the kids to know their Bible.
My show will leave three big moral lessons:
1. Don't act like Aholah and Aholibah.
2. Don't worship false gods.
3. Don't go to orgies.
Besides, the film ought to make ten million dollars.
Tulsa Tribune
"A STORY IS GOING AROUND. HEWLEY, THAT YOU CAN'T
ADEQUATELY HOUSE YOUR FAMILY ON YOUR PRESENT SALARY."
SEVEN MASTERPIECEES OF GOTHIC HORROR, edited by Robert Donald Spector (Bantam Classics, 95 cents).
Dated in this day of the science fiction novel but occupying an important place in the literature of the world is the Gothic horror story, which took its inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century fascination concerning gloomy old houses, medieval churches, moats and forests.
This collection begins with the prototype of the Gothic horror tale, Horace Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto." The others are Clara Reeve's "The Old English Baron," Matthew Gregory Lewis" Mistrust," Mary Shelley's "The Heir of Mondolfo," Hawthorne's "The White Old Maid," Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" and Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla."
FOUR GREAT PLAYS BY CHEKHOV (Bantam Classics, 60 cents).
* *
Here is a sharply restyled reprint of a Bantam volume of a few years ago. The cover is a brilliant departure from the format earlier presented. As for the plays, they are too well known to require comment—"The Cherry Orchard," "The Three Sisters," "The Sea Gull" and "Uncle Vanya."
$$
* * *
$$
THE OCTOPUS, by Frank Norris (Bantam Classics, 75 cents).
With a bright new cover that features John Steuart Curry's painting called "Line Storm," this early 20th century volume appears in a new paperback format. It was issued several years ago, but has been restyled.
Many readers are familiar with the story, which is a sharp indictment by Norris of the practices of the Southern Pacific Railroad in the wheat country of California. Students of the American novel are more and more turning to this book as a key volume in American naturalism.
SAVO, by Richard F. Newcomb (Bantam, 50 cents).
This is a non-fictional account of a battle in the Pacific in World War II. Newcomb, who wrote "Abandon Ship," describes a night battle off Guadalcanal that almost destroyed the entire Pacific fleet.
Daily Transan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912
Telephone Vikking 3-2700
Extension 711, news room
Extension 376, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays, and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Fred Zimmerman ... Managing Editor
Ree Marshall, Bill Shadden, Mike Miller
Pred Zimbabwe...Managing Editor
Ben Marshall, Bill Sheldon, Mike Miller,
Art Miller, Margaret Cathcart ... Assistant Managing Editors
Steve Clark ...Sports Editor
Scott Payne ...City Editor
Trudy Meserve and Jackie Stern ...Co-Society Editors
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Dennis Branstiter ... Editorial Editor
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Jack Cannon ... Business Manager