KWSNN COMMENT
Loving IT or leaving IT
"Do you have to look away when you pass by the diner/Where the squad car stops for coffee?/Don't you wish that you were anyplace else but here?/... Do you grab a cigarette when a man in an unmarked/Plymouth pulls you over just to say, 'hi?'/Don't you wish that you were anyplace else but here?/And do you fumble in your wallet while you're looking for your license/And he tells you not to talk with your mouth full?/Don't you wish that you were anyplace else but here?"—Harry Nilsson
And don't we all wish, at times, that we were anyplace else but here?
The Our-Country-Right-or-Wrong-Love-It-or-Leave-It crusade has hit hard at many young people, and many young people have decided to do what the Love-It-or-Leave-It nuts have really had in mind—leaving it. The flow to Canada has steadily increased, representing mostly young men who knew that in order to 'love it' they would have to go to prison, because fighting in Vietnam is as far from being an expression of love for America as it is from being an expression of love for the Vietnamese people.
But the nuts who are pushing the issue and insisting that we either love it or leave it have
made a very good point. It was best expressed on a bumper sticker I saw recently which said. "Put your heart in America or get your ass out." With that bit of virtue which so characterizes America, the makers of the bumper sticker had left out the words 'heart' and 'ass' and inserted pictures of a valentine heart and horse's rear, respectively.
Why not, kids? Why not that? Why not precisely that?
If you decide to stay in America, as I think I have decided to do, why don't you really put your heart into it?
I don't mean, I hope, what that redneck with the bumper sticker means though. He means this; Don't bother the cops; don't cheat on your income tax so much that you get caught; send your kids to Sunday School; put the flag out on the right days; and wear an asinine bumper sticker on your rear end.
I mean that we should be as deeply entrenched as possible in America, realize we are each a "child of Amerika," as super-patriot Jerry Rubin calls himself. And from that entrenchment and that realization, we should be ready to put our heart into America.
On issues which America's politicians (excepting the very few or 'sometime' statesmen) are negligent, children of America must put their hearts into America by demanding action.
Active dissent from the quicksandish apathy of America can save America from being strangled by pollution, militarism and materialism.
Since merely 'putting ones heart' into America creates no lobby, we pressure in Washington, D.C., as does—shall we say—the oil lobby or the Detroit 'monster' lobby. Which means that we must find a voice for our hearts in newspapers, in lecture halls, in demonstrations, in the streets.
In other words, if our Mama—America—is bleeding, we're going to take her to the hospital. We're not going to cure Mama by plastering our rears with bumper stickers denying that Mama needs help.
Yeah, there are times, many times, when we wish we were anyplace else but here, but if we are here and we decide to stay, we should listen well to our fellow Americans who tell us to put your hearts in America or get your asses out.
—Mike Shearer
PUT YOUR ❤ IN AMERICA OR GET YOUR ❤ OUT
Inherit extinction
It is a sad fact that only a small number of people actually realize that "in a world devoid of other living organisms, man himself would die."
The earth's plant and animal populations, being a major part of the web of life, have intimate and essential relationships between each other that should not be altered to any great extent for the sake of man. Yet a great majority of people still continue to rid the earth of these organisms in any way they can, by building more highways, needless killing of animals and spraying poisons over our lands without regard to the ecological importance these actions have on the environment.
The science that studies the mutual relationships between organisms and their environment —ecology—is fighting an uphill battle not only because of the complexity this science curtails, but also because people are blind to the proper
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
An All-American college newspaper
Kansan Telephone Numbers
Newsroom—UN 4-3464 Business Office—UN 4-4358
Published at the University of Kansas daily during all academic year except holidays and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kan. 68044. Classes goods, services and employment advertised offered or students without regard to color, creed or national origin. Students admitted those of the University of Kansas or the State Board of Regents.
Business Adviser .. Mel Adams
Business Manager .. Jeri Butterfield
Assistant Business Manager .. Mike Banks
Advertising Managers .. Larry Cates, Joanne Bos
National Advertising Manager .. Oscar Bassemann
Sheryl Browne
BUSINESS STAFF
Business Adviser  Mel Adams
NEWS STAFF
NEWS STAFF
News Advisor  James W. Murray
Managing Editor Ken Peterson
Campus Editors Ted Iiff
News Editor Joe Bullard
Editorial Editors Mike Shearer, Joe Nass, Monroe Dodd
Sports Editors Bruce Carnahan, Steve Shriver
Makeup Editors Charlie Cape, George Wilkens
Wife Editor Charlie Cape, George Wilkens
Women's Page Editors Linda Loyd, Carolyn Bowers
Arts and Reviews Editor Genelle Richards
Assistant Campus Editors Vicki Phillips, Nila Walker
Assistant News Editors Donna Shrader,
Carolyn Shrader
place of fellow creatures and lesser life forms in the pattern of existence.
When man scalps the land by building more highways, he outrages the ecology—he destroys the humus, evaporates the water, erodes the soil, alters the climate, and so shocks the environment to a point where it never again can be the same. Our society has built enough roads of adequate transportation. If we should continue to rob the landscape of its life, man will ultimately shorten his.
Member Associated Collegiate Press
Useless killing of animals, whether large or small, has some ecological effect on the balance of nature. Killing snakes, spiders and rodents just because one is scared of them or ignorant of their niche in life, is not only callous but also dangerous to man. Alan Devoe explained over a decade ago: "All creatures are in a common brotherhood . . . interconnected with everything else. Not only is there a basic brotherhood between all men but there is a bond between a man and a mouse, or a tree and a fox, or a frog and a raccoon." So the next time you go to kill some animals for the fun of it, stop and think why the Creator put that animal there, and then let it go!
One other needless action by man that upsets the balance of nature all too often is the continuous spreading of poisonous chemicals over the land in pursuit of one objective. That main objective so many times is to rid the land of some insect to save a food crop. If the insect is ruining a crop,ok, get rid of it, but use your head when you do it. Before you spray the land with pesticides, consider if your neighbor's farm will be affected,if wind conditions will carry the poisons to other parts of the land and thus pollute the air, if the wildlife and other plant and animal populations will be affected in any way. Remember,the cheapest way is not always the best way. Even though selective spraying may cost more at the start than aerial spraying,in the long run it's more beneficial for the environment.
We make our greatest mistake when we believe that the world belongs to us. It does not—we belong to it. Next Wednesday: Noise pollution.
BILL HULKE, Iowa State Daily
Sorel's News Service
Great Western Theologians
LANDING ZONE BALDY, SOUTH VIETNAM—During his brief visit to Vietnam, Cardinal Cooke of New York, celebrating Mass at an American regimental base 27 miles south of Da Nang, assured his communicants: "You are friends of Christ by the fact that you come over here."
Alphabet soup and maybe an avocado
By MIKE SHEARER Editorial Editor
For those who don't have the disadvantage of reading the editorials from the Topeka Daily Capital, here are a few quotes from a recent one about Sen. Wayne Morse, whose sharp tongue kept the U.S. Senate alert for years;
"Ordinarily, Kansas don't (very sic) give two hoots who runs for Congress in Oregon.
"But if Wayne Morse, the stormy, sharp-tongued former U.S. senator from Oregon, does convince himself that he should run for the U.S. House of Representatives this year, it becomes a matter of concern for Americans everywhere, including Kansas."
Two questions come to mind. What's so refreshing about a senator who hasn't "sounded off much?" If what this country doesn't need is Wayne Morse, may we assume we do need the congressman he is considering opposing—that being John Dellenback, whom the Daily Capital laudingly calls a "Republican few if any Kansans ever heard of?"
Yessirree, Kansans don't ord'narily give two boots who runs fer Congress in Oregon. And one of the reasons is that they are so misinformed about the value of men who might be candidates there or anywhere. One of the misinformers, if I can believe the shoddy analysis of Morse that the Topeka Capital editorialist has given us, is the Topeka Daily Capital.