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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 18, 1967)
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN Editorials Commentary Monday, September 18, 1967 Page 2 uiiiiiiiiiiiiiinHisiiiiiiiiiii!imiintiiHiiinainiiiHiiiiiiiiiiiiiniinminuuHiiiiiiiiuiiiiimniiuti: i No New Problem The problem of where to put 103 In tramural flag football teams has been solved at least for the present school year. But the problem will be returning to haunt the intramural program next fall if the University does not take some ac tion during this school year. Next fall is too late. Through the hard work of Joel Meier, University intramural director, and the cooperation of the Lincoln Parks and Rec reation Department, about eight football fields will be located in the new Woods Swimming Pool area near S3rd and 0 St However tins area has been only "temporarily loaned for one year." Thus, in exactly one year, the Univer sity intramural officials will find them selves confronted with exactly the same dilemma and perhaps one even worse if construction and parking take their toll on recretion space. The problem is not an old one. Meier notes that space for football fields has caused problems for the last ten years. In fact two years ago. space was so limited that games were played up to the first snowfall and the football champion ships were held the following spring. If this problem has existed for so many years, it seems to the Nebraskan that it is about time for the proper admin istrative officials to come to grasp with the problem so intramural officials are not faced once again with the last-minute task of finding new fields. The Nebraskan feels that Administra tion officials should certainly take note of the increasing number of students and therefore the increasing number of individ uals involved in flag football. And then act accordingly. M. Edward Bryant, in noting the open ing of new recreational areas during the summer near the dormitories, explained that such an area encourages spontaneity and reduces tension within the building, "creating a more workable living environ ment," The Nebraskan feels that flag football, if there is space for it, can be one of the most effective sports in producing such a situation. But this will not be the case if the University does not initiate moves to eith er make or find new spaces for flag foot ball now. Cultural Advances This is the time of year for editorial writers to look over the year's cultural of ferings and then rightously shout "Nebras ka is nothing but a vast cultural waste land!" But we cant honestly do it We looked over the offerings both on campus and in Lincoln and found a wide range of good cultural events scheduled for the entire season. Go over to the Nebraska Union and look over the list of scheduled foreign films for the season. The Russian film "The Cranes are Flying" and "Nasculine-Femin-ine" from France are two of the best of the 14 in the series. The Sheldon Art Gallery season of for eign films also includes a number of ex perimental films and some American classics like the Humphrey Bogarts. Even the Nebraska Union 50-cent Fri day nights movies include several outstand ing pictures ("The Ugly American" and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold"). If your tastes run to music the ap pearances of jazz musician Cal Tjader, the Tum&o Opera Players and the West minster Choir should be enough for a start er on a good winter calendar. Other music events for the season have been set by the Lincoln Friends of Cham ber Music and by the Community Con certs promoters who have scheduled six concerts for the season at Pershing Mu nicipal Auditorium. Tickets for the C o m munity Concerts will be on sale on cam pus in the next few weeks. Drama fans should be delighted with the seasonal fare. University repertory offers plays by Moliere ("The Misanthrope"), Edward Aibee ("A Delicate Balance," the 1967 Pulit zer prize for drama) and Howard Pinter tplay unchosen as yet). The theatre group also plans a presentation of "King Lear," another in the series of Shakespearean plays put on in the past few years. Nebraskan Wesleyan University and the Lincoln Community Playhouse have also several good productions for the sea son. The Lincoln Great Books Club discus sion groups are forming for the winter and the University and NWU art galleries will sponsor several shows throughout the win ter. There is one rightous comment we want to make attend the campus and city cultural events, itH do you good. a smnnnnmmimiimnHimiminmiimnnniffl I A DIFFERENT DRUMMER I by al spanjper Dear Editor: We all know that the summer months spent away from the classroom are de signed to relax and refresh ns so that when September rolls around we return to the class-room with ala crity. However, the afore mentioned theory doesnt work in practice for most of us. We find our thoughts lingering en memories of the beautiful blondes at the beach who lived in the briefest of bikinis. Those thoughts begin to dissipate by th time the first line of hour exams is fired our way other years have worked that way. at least. The problem the serious student has this year is for getting tiie fond, fun-memories of the summer with every girl on campus ap pearing in public dressed in the height of fashion i.e. the shortest of skirts and dresses. Girls so attired are distracting both in and out of the classroom; the mind wanders and becomes lost in a world where no college credits can be earned. So my proposal is to or der all girls who venture out onto the co-ed campus to cover their legs at least to the knee so that the stu dent with good intentions can return Lis imagination to the textbook, the class room and the blackboard. Frank Lee Dear Editor: Seeing how there are 18,000 people playing the game of college this year, it occurred to me that these 18.000 students could pos sibly find some way to pro test better yet do some thing, about the prevailing conditions on our campus. I feel that there are cer tain questions which should be answered by the deans, the officials of the Union, construction companies or the chancellor. 1. Who is responsible for absolute chaos during reg istration when the majority of people are pre-reg-istered? Example: One woman working a drop and add line with 115 people in it 2. Who pays the construc tion companies to leave vast amounts of mud around the unfinished new dorm complex so that the residents can take it with them into the complex? 3. Going along with num ber two, why isnt the con struction completed as pro posed? We could include in this category dorms, houses, streets and the Union. 4. Who allows the book stores to bold a monopoly on the buying and selling of books? Example: "We cant buy this book. It isnt going to be used next se mester." This is true. First semester books are seldom used for second semester classes but they are some times used first semester the next year. S. If you are registered in school and still dont have your new ID sticker, why cant a person check out a library book for use in a class if he is carrying a notebook and books? . Lastly, but of seeming non-importance: How can the Union serve such ter rible coffee and charge a second dime for a second cup? Attention Mr. Barnes: Try a cup, or better yet a second v cup of coffee at 7:30 or 8:30 in the morning and dont sign for it. Pay for it and see if either the first or second cup is worth the dime. Upset With The Game If a man does not keep pace with his com panions. perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. Despite all the sound and fury aroused by the Board of Regents' decision to en force stricter housing regu lations this semester, there has been almost no discus sion of the basic schism which has given rise to all the superficial tremors. Be cause, so far. the A.S.U.N. government has parried with the Regents on the Regents' terms, and so far no one's collar has been ruffled. But by last week, the friendly shrug and games manship of the Regents' messenger boy. Dean Ross, seemed like a kiss of death to the old way. When the Regents ac c e p t e d the recommenda tions of tn Ad Hoc Com mittee on housing policy last June, they took care to do so on terms which would make their accep tance meaningless. What they agreed to do, in effect was to liberalize the housing rules only if aud when there "were some guarantee that the dorms would be filled to over flowing. Last year's lofty debate about "total education" and "the value of group living" has come to no more than this: "you can live where ever you want as long as more than enough of you live where we want you to live in the dorms." The students' request for the freedom to choose their ovn housing was smothered by the Regents' position that the economic stability of the University most not be threatened even by their own inept policy of build ing too many dormitories. Dean Ross and the Of fice of Student Affairs, in the manner of Dean Rusk and the Department of State, has attempted to convince the student body Daily Nebraskan Vat Xu. oat. IS. OR wxErwMt: vitam. tn-tsm, wmm. nt aar momM r M nr klihiiii aaae. . Mm Hummr. IWw m - " wm r rm SS? 2T22U5Lr wm vbftd 4 Gwwnygrt Itaafem t to Mfcta-to-i a tar BHTOSUL mtrr JZL. LrT """ E-Bitar OMi b; Staff n. Im -""" : - ' - kw: newt Mnt tmln IMnt: vw "" "a irrrar-; VOTT tartar. U Gja-rhlk. R.-r Irrv. B Femmar. Jim Vyme. J- viwi .Nct Inatt. Ckrai 6Mcfcweii: PnMesra!er Kake Juraua aaA Im Laoei;. VMKEMI WCkfT . ww..rClB J Katjom kvetixt Msueer Rw-er ?; r-mf T "-: Tr JaM Bem: MMi 4 C.mmun mt brmo Mamma tmm Ken; Cannon Mmfn Imti Iw'luit Gar? Mrrer; annum i -ai Qaafc. lama. If you haven't tuned in yet this col umn is dedicated to the pursuit of hippie ness. With the help of the hippies (both of you) out there in the Multiversity, it could become to the Daily Nebraskan what the Other is to East Village. But the column is also directed at all embryonic hippies and bippies-at-heart who want to become full fledged flower children. As scores of Nebraska students and faculty start dropping out I'll be passing along bits of valuable informatira about hippie philosophy and hippie happenings. It's a well established fact on campus, that the first Cower children were the Phi Psi's. Straight students couldn't help but gawk at their brightly colored head adorn ments. Most admire the way they have been able to return to a more primitive state in the midst of the on-going Multi versity. The Phi Psi's enjoy the more basic things of life like toy balloons, geodesic pigskins and grass. Yes. grass. They can be seen at most any hour caring for it in their front yard with water from toy bal loons tossed from their pad. Groovy. Do your thing at Beemer this week- end. A hippie Nebraska stock grower has offered to turn his pastures over to NU nude-niks for the weekend. It's the first Nebraska Krishna Kitty Clover Crunch-In. In the euphoric barnyard air. hundreds of bare bottomed Nebraskans will turn on by alternately sitting on potato chips and smoking corn cob silk and chicken feathers. Gas. The latest outcry of organized mother hood against legalized abortion is, "Keep the baby. Faith." While the University cats were away, the Nebraska mice were at play with housing regulations and also made it "crystal" clear that they would not toler ate drug taking. OK, all you heads out there. Kiss vour No-Doz good-bye. There'll be no midnight oil "trips." However I get the impression from reading the back to school issues of Es quire. Playboy and Time that a student who comes away from college this year without having a hallucinatory experience will be as out of it as his father who "missed" all the panty raids ai school. What was the term? Total Education? Daa Dkkmeyer that getting stepped on can be fun and profitable. But it is coming to light for an increasing number of students that something is amiss. Echoing folk sing er Donovan, even some of the so-called "respectable" student leaders are begin ning to say that they "feel like a fool in a foolery." What has made previous attempts to "work with the Administration" so abor tive is the simple political truth that the difference be tween recommending and negotiating fir changes is made by power. It is the difference between making requests and making de mands. The A.S.UJJ. Senate is, by design, powerless, while the Regents derive their power from the authority of the state constitution. In this context, student apathy about progressive change through the machi nations of their government is a sign of grass roots in telligence. Rut authority is not the only source of power. There is also the power which comes from the potential to use force of one kind or another. The reason why the Regents can justify their actions as simple "practical necessities" is that students haven't yet said that the action they want is just as practical and just as necessary. Imagine what the United Auto Workers would reply if Ford Motor Company said that hiring non-union workers was sometimes an economic necessity. Perhaps it is the insip ient belief that ladies and gentlemen dont threaten to use force which has made the changes that have oc curred thus jfar a product of "necessity" and crsis. - But there is hope that not everyone believes that crins is man's ordinary state, and that this Uni versity's next hundred years mill not be another accidental century. To those who want to make this hope a reality, the ime is not to mourn but to organize. Grand Sprix by Geor&e Kaufman j I first became aware of the existence of BUI Steen, two years ago. I was standing before a book rack filled with tha works of Ayn Rand at the Campus Bookstore where he was an employee. I later realized that the prominent display of her books was probably his project. A voice behind me asked, "Do you like Ayn Rand?" I looked around to make sure the voice was speaking to me and was confronted by the tall, troubled-looking fig. ure which everyone in Lincoln last year came to know well. From there I was invited to a "discussion" of her works and ideology objectivism at his small apart ment near campus. I accepted, mostly from curiosity and went, quite frankly fearful of everything from being at tacked to being involved in some sort of Communist cell activity. Of course it turned out to be just a discussion and, even though I found him to a likable, frustrated intellect ual, 1 chose not to attend his weekly gatherings. I did this mostly in honesty to him, for he was such a sincere man that I felt guilty pretending to be more than mildly interested in the Utopian fantasies of Miss Rand. I soon forgot about the entire thing, and it came as something of a surprise when I heard he had established a small bookstore at his apartment in devotion to his first love books. But it soon became known that Bill Steen was not selling the pallid offerings to be found at the front of the Union, but instead intellectually stimulating books, quota underground unquote books and just plain, everyday, run-of-the-mill dirty books. As such enterprises do when seeded in a receptive environment, Mr. Steen's store grew and prospered and was moved to a new home in a spacious warehouse just a block from campus, and gained a new and appropriate name, "Heroic." This self-made entrepreneur now handled paperbacks on sex, religion, history, philosophy, autobiographies, nov vels, lapel buttons, nudist magazines, wall posters, and, as he advertised, "If we dont have it we'll order it." Even the "good" students were understandably drawn to Mr. Steen's emporium, as he sold all paperbacks (a sizeable portion of a college student's class texts) at a discount under the campus bookstores' prices. But Bill Steen committed a crime. Whereas any drugstore, bus and-or train station, etc., in Lincoln could and did sell books vividly describing a certain widely practiced act between a man and a woman, Steen sold magazines which showed (blush) nude women and men. It was at this time that the defenders of this coun try's morals rallied to show their colors and just how small they were. Steen was hounded, arrested and his store duly berated and condemned in the blackest of words by the mem bers of the County Attorney's office. Bill Steen was convicted of selling and advertising pornography by a jury of solid Lincoln citizens and bis case was appealed to the Nebraska Supreme Court The University community made no secret of the sym pathy for Steen's cause: and while a march staged in his behalf through downtown Lincoln drew mainly the type that would join any march except an Army drill, most students mere silently but helplessly for him. While his case was on appeal. Deputy County Attor ney William Blue, Steen's prosecutor, visited the Heroic Book Store and, upon emerging, was quoted as having r. ; ........ ... ..mfW hemic xccxs;m. . KAv? iff V CELEBRATING THE END ... to a week of classes, stu dents unwind at Friday's Jazz 'n' Java session. said that it was too bad Steen persisted in selling bad magazines because otherwise the store had many good books to off er. To those who were not aware of Mr. Blue's fine char acter, it might have appeared that he had set himself up as the god of literature, benevolently strolling from store to store nodding approval or chastising the owners choice of fare. But of course he did not stroll from store to store. He visited only the Heroic Book Store. This summer, Bill Steen passed away and. with some thing that to some sounded like a sigh of relief, officials announced that the charges against him would naturally be dropped. lJ Hv sort 01 hard t0 brieve that Bill Steen ever fxJr!r;. Hls existence to the students of the University lasted barely a year, yet he became perhaps the best known figure on campus. And he 1 a u g h e d with the students at the absurd hypocrisy he had uncovered. Although he never knew it, I laughed a lot with Bill Steen. vi I 51tss ,this " a sad sort of combination eulogy and belated thank-you note. Good luck, Bill Steen's sister.