KANSAN COMMENT
Bury Frankenstein
By MIKE SHEARER Guest Editorialist
Life being, as one poet put it, sufficient unto itself and education being, as put by another, its own end, we must all take our lives and our educations into our own hands. Liberation has come.
The student body was really given no opportunity to vote on a full strike. The Chancellor grouped into one mass the 'nays' last Friday, no one knowing whether a nay meant retaining the status quo or closing down the school.
But what has been enacted is viable if we all recognize that to continue academia without the least pause is to ignore the fact that Genghis Khan has been dragged from his grave, his skeleton has been draped with the flesh of American fighting men and the American flag has been implanted in the bony fingers of the ghastly corpse.
This resurrection has taken place in Southeast Asia, and Richard Nixon, acting chairman of the United States, is the grave robber and the Frankenstein. He is the mastermind behind the breathing of life into that skeleton, and he is the mastermind behind disguising that ugly beast as Americana, virtue and justice.
And how close is all of that lugubrious morbidity to Kansas University? It is just as close to each individual as each individual decides to make it.
"For know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual man," wrote Dostoyesky. "This knowledge is
the crown of life for the monk and for every man."
Similarly, Kazantakis wrote, "Love responsibility. Say: 'It is my duty, and mine alone, to save the earth. If it is not saved, then I alone am to blame.'"
Such writings can inspire zealous self righteousness, that spirit of reform-or-I-will-reform-you, but such interpretations are felonious. To feel the responsibility for all mankind's ills and evils, to feel the responsibility for the resurrection of Genghis Khan, is also to feel the responsibility to understand what is wrong and what needs to be done.
On our campus this week we have an opportunity to come closer to an understanding of what is wrong—what is wrong with Nixon, what is wrong with America and what is wrong with our own complacency. And we have an opportunity to come closer to an understanding of what needs to be done.
Our lives and our educations are ours now. We must decide between studying calculus and war, between studying Egyptian architecture and current events, between studying botany and prevention of death. No courses of study are irrelevant, of course, but the priority of relevance has been placed in our hands.
By whatever paths we each shall choose, let us bury Genghis Khan.
Let us tear the American flag from his bony fingers.
Let us command our leaders to get out of graveyards.
Let us defy gravity if we must to insure that our national heritage be defiled no more by such masquerades.
Let us face total liberation by assuming our responsibilities.
Sorel's News Service
Our Master's Choice
WASHINGTON—Large-scale air attacks on North Vietnam in the early days of May have led political observers here to conclude that the Pentagon has at last found a receptive ear at the White House.
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hearing voices—
Shedding some tears for ROTC
To the editor:
An open letter to Chancellor Chalmers and the SenEx Committee:
The first amendment of the constitution guarantees the civil right of peaceable assembly. Your act in cancelling the ROTC review was as illegal as if you had kept blacks from voting in the south. No one is really fooled by the facade of having the military commanders "decide" not to hold the review. The blacks in the south had always "willingly" waived their rights to vote. The ROTC commanders are in just as defensive a position as the southern blacks facing loss of jobs, loss of standing in the university and fear of illegal violence to themselves and their families. They must relinquish their constitutional rights to endure.
The ROTC obviously wanted the review. They would not have put it on the calendar months ahead of time and planned for it if they did not.
One can always argue expediency to deprive another of his civil rights. Rights are not necessary for the majority. The pro-military point of view is in the minority on this campus. The pro-military point of view has no right to peaceable assembly on this campus. The Chancellor's open letter to KUCA in the Kansan on May 6 was a hypocritical lie. It made me sick to my stomach. The Chancellor does not need to issue an open statement when he has more subtle means that are more effective.
I am not arguing that the review should have been held. I am upholding the ROTC's constitutional right to decide the quesuon for itself. SenEx and the Chancellor acted illegally in even convening to decide the question and they met for an hour on the question before the military instructors even came to the meeting. The decision was not a free one; it was coerced.
Patricia Ridenour
Ferry, 3rd year law student
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To the editor:
We should all be truly amazed at Associate Professor Ronald Calgaard's statement in the April 30
Technology and the almighty GNP have been the common panacea the American people have relied upon for an excuse to do nothing since it so helpfully prevented a depression in the '30s. "Something will turn up" is a pretty good idea if you are looking for something to wrap your garbage in, I would rather my life didn't depend on that attitude.
Technology may produce a nicer transportation system, a cure for cancer or solve the yet untold mysteries of the atomic structure. But will it produce a method of farming the oceans, where no extensive research is being done? Will it produce a significant rise in agricultural production in underdeveloped countries, where no or very little research has been conducted? Will it bring us a cheap desalinization process which will allow us to turn desert into productive land? The chief concern of the alarmists like Dr. Ehrlich is that the success tomorrow in all these projects would give us only a few years respite.
According to the USDA, by 1984, food demands will have surpassed the United States productive ability. According to William and Paul Paddock, this will happen by 1975. One of the Paddock brothers is an agronomist and plant pathologist who has headed a tropical research station and also a school of agriculture in Central America. The other is a retired Foreign Service Officer of the State Department. Together they have accumulated 40 years of observation and research in agriculture and natural resources. Most of us are aware of Dr. Ehrlich's qualifications. Their "ifs" are based on some pretty substantial evidence. Of course we can all, in the comfort of our homes and offices, discount the fact that a few scientists have dug up, secure in the hope that one of them will accidentally also dig up the big breakthrough that will save us all. Technology has already solved the problem of overpopulation though. All
"Kansan" that Dr. Paul Ehrlich's predictions are based on "ifs." Especially since Calgaards accuracy is based on "coulds." Technology "could" alter the future situation. Economic growth "could" affect population growth.
we have to do is use the atomic weapons we've been paying for.
Raymond D. Ziegelmeier Gem junior
Kent the kid had just one hang-up, he was a tease. On nice summer days he would tease ole Sarge and generally drive him nuts. Kent had all kinds of tricks. His favorite trick was that, he would sneak up on Sarge when he was sleeping, swat him on the butt then run 25 feet. This was safe 'cause Sarge only had a 23 foot chain. After a time all the kids in the neighborhood would come out to watch Kent and Sarge do their thing. Kent would swat Sarge and Sarge would bark and run 23 feet then do a groovy flip as his chain snapped taut.
One day the chain broke and ole Sarge bit Kent and three of his buddies on the ass. The neighborhood was in an uproar—what do you do with an overreacting dog. Kent and his buddies said destroy Sarge and all the other dogs around so they couldn't bite anyone anymore. But Kent's father, who was older and wiser, knew that Sarge and the other dogs were needed to keep burglars away at night. So he came up with a solution. Put the dogs in a pen, pull out their teeth and cut off their feet so they can't run and bite little kids.
KENT, AND THE OUR GANG TRAGEDIES
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Once upon a time there was a youngster named Kent. Kent was an average type person, a little skinny perhaps but he loved to play indoors and outdoors too when it was warm and sunny. Next door to Kent lived Sarge a German shepard dog. Sarge was just an average dog, he chased rabbits when his master took him for walks and loved to play with the kids he lived with. But mostly Sarge spent his days snoozing in his back yard chained to his dog house.
MORAL: No matter whose tail gets bit, it hurts;
Chris Stark
1st year law student
Bartlesville, Oklahoma