THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1968
PAGF 2
Nixon's first
failure
l Once again, the cabinet and the old cry, "Spiro
T. who?" Somewhere in the world today, mother
hen Nixoa, having revealed his chicks to the world,
is quietly cackling, thinking about all those poor
reporters who are trying to figure out Just who Bill
Rogers, George Schultz, Walt Hickel, Maury Stans
and W. M. Blount are.
From here It looks like Dick's "bring us
together" strategy has collapsed a month and a
half before he takes office. Among his cabinet
there is nary a black, a woman or a charismatic
youngster.
THOUGH A GREAT DEAL has been said about
Lyndon B. Johnson's egomania, preliminary in
dications are that Nixon's life-style will simply
mean more of the same. For what other reason
would a President surround himself with a group
of the most uncontroversial, unknown and
unrespected men he could find, put them all under
the umbrella of ubiquitous Herb Klein and present
them en masse so as to prevent any one man
from basking in the limelight?
There are, to be sure, a couple of well-known
names in the cabinet. There is Gov. George "I
been brainwashed" Romney and Gov. John Volpe.
Congressman Melvin Laird is fairly well-known.
Of these three, however, only Laird has a highly
significant post
THE REMAINDER of the cabinet is made up
of men who will in no way overshadow or draw
attention away from the man in charge. Perhaps
Nixon is trying to make up for his own lack of
charisma by surrounding himself with equally
unexciting figures: but what of his promises to
include all the dissident, disenfranchised groups
in his cabinet?
At this time, journalists can do little more
than speculate about how all the Spiro T. who s
in the cabinet will perform. Hopefully, there is
a sleeper or two among the appointees. Even if
there is, it doesn't appear that Nixon wants to
give him enough personal leeway to develop into
a national figure or household word.
The result could be a widening of LBTi
credibility gap: an increasing feeling among the
people that the federal government and the ad
ministration are distant, unfriendly .unknown
to the citizens and unconcerned about their proo
lems. NOTHING COULD be more devastating to a
new government in a difficult age than to lose
the faith of the people before it takes office. Nixoiu
however, has done nothing to prevent this from
happening.
Nixon's cabinet choices are singularly
uninspiring: they raise considerable doubt about
Nixon's willingness to communicate with the people
or to try "bringing us together." The president-elect
has failed in his first task.
Jack Todd
Those good ole
college days
Going to a college or university is a marvelous
txperience. Everyone should go if he has time.
(And money, too.)
At college one teams many skills both social
and otherwise. Socially, all undergraduate women
and freshman and sophomore men usually benefit
from the experience of living on campus. They
learn how to lock themselves out of their rooms,
bow to give showers for their friends (in the shower,
of course), and also how to get the least out of
studying. (Sometimes they can get more if they
open their books.) This is about the extent of
the social life except for functions and street
dances.
BUT, EVERY student must remember why
he has come to college. He may be catching cold
from a draft; he may go to get away from his
loving family, or, perhaps, to get an education.
Those who go for the last reason usually receive
a degree after a few years of attending classes.
When a person decides to enter college be
is running a great risk. He is getting away from
home for the first time and must be making
decisions by himself. He must also learn the hard
lessons of the Computers.
Each year at registration time, there is a period
called "Computer Week. It cotipares slightly to
Greek Week except that it doesn't rhyme and it
is even more confusing.
THE OBJECT OF Computer Week is to promote
. errors on schedules. This year the mistakes in
creased 125 aod aa eves greater ificreue is ex
pected for second semester registration.
Then there is Be Kind to Computers Week
commonly called Drop and Add Week. (Those in
volved in the latter rarely comply with the former.)
,. During this week the students have time to rest,
and play hop scotch, while waiting to correct their
schedules.
Finally classes start and everyone is happy.
There are football games, but mostly homework;
- ethers let their homework tale care of them.
HOUR EXAMS AND essays creep into the busy
schedules of the students. Many students receive
iowB slips because of their work. Others breathe
prayers of gratitude.
Then another. Dead Week, appears. Everybody
pretends to be dead so he won't have to take
finals. Some students do succeed and die, but it
is only after the finals re ever.
The students who receive passing grades return
to college again. The others go their separate ways.
Maey receive Hersbey Scholarships and others look
to Jobs.
TEE STUDENTS receiving Her she y
Scholarships are able to get rice at a discount,
thtf get aa all-expense paid trip to fee glamorous
tmiht&st Asia, sod are in general very lacky.
The rest must worry about becoming traffic
liUr'i-es or murder victims.
The stodests who retara to college are the
ewt mia hare survived the werd-ost courses where
tie weed are taken out and sent home. Soon
these students earn encuh hours aod are able
to gradate. They sow can earn more than if
tbey wssUn't have attended c&Qege. Tbey go their
wa wsts making bouses from tieky-tacky aod
era eeasidered to be average Americans.
Joy Teter
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Our man Hoppe . .
How to tell the young from the old
by Arthur Hoppe
Once upon a time there was
a young man named Guevara
Grommet who believed,
above all else, in individual
freedom.
"Nobody," he said, squar
ing his chin, "has any excuse
for ever shoving anybody else
around."
THEN, WHEN HE WAS IS,
his draft board classified him
1-A.
"Wait a minute," he said.
"What gives you the right to
take away my freedom, put
me in an institution for two
years and teach me how to kill
people in a war I think un
just?" "It's because we know,"
said the draft board
patriotically, "what's right
for our country."
SO YOUNG 'GUEVARA
went back to his campus and
organized an anti-draft rally.
But the College Administra
tion denied him permission to
speak.
"Wait a minute," he said.
"What gives you the right to
take away my freedom to
have my say?"
"It's because we know,"
said the College Administra
tion stuffily, "what's right for
our college."
So young Guevara decided
to stage a peaceful protest.
And the cops hit him on the
head and tossed him in the
paddy wagon.
"WAIT A MINUTE," he
said. "What gives you the
right to take away my
freedom and shove me
around?"
"It's because we know,"
said the cops angrily, "what's
right for community."
"What a sick society," said
young Guevara. "Whites op
press Blacks. Rich oppress
poor. And we slaughter in
nocents around the world
because we know it's good for
them. It's people who think
they know what's right who
shove other people around.
"WE MUST TEAR down
this sorry scheme of things
entirely and build a new
society. I won't even think
about what kind, because I
don't want to fall into the trap
of thinking I know what's
right."
So young Guevara became
a revolutionary.
The first thing he did, of
course, was to run the Army
recruiters off the campus
because he knew joining the
Army was wrong.
THEN HEorganizeda
student strike, kidnaped the
Dean of Medieval Agronomy
and hit the Administration
with demands for 27 new
ways of doing things
because he knew the old ways
were wrong.
U n f o r t u nately, some
students objected to the
strike. But when they rose to
make their points, he shouted
them down because be
knew they were wrong.
And when the cops came to
restore order, he heaved
bricks at them because he
knew they were fascist pigs
representing a sick, dead
wrong society.
ONE DAY HE CAUGHT a
short, bespectacled student
trying to sneak into class.
Naturally, he shoved him up
against a wall and told the
little racist to cop-out and not
to try it again.
"Wait a minute," said the
little student. "What gives
you the right to take away my
freedom and shove me
around? I suppose it's
because you think you know
what's right?"
"Oh, no" said Guevara,
shocked at being identified
with the old society he
despised. "It's because I
know what's wrong."
MORAL: Old people know
what's right. Young people
know what's wrong. And
when it comes to getting
shoved around, there isn't
much to choose.
Chronicle Features
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Dear Editor:
A lot of people are tired of
waiting for the system these
djiys tired of waiting for
the system to change itself,
tired of waiting for the
government to end the
slaughter in Vietnam and
change its military stance
around the world, tired of
waiting for meaningful
human rights legislation on
the state and local level, aud
of specific local interest:
darned tired of waiting for the
administration of this school
to make changes that have
been asked for by the ma
jority of the students for
many years.
Administration officials are
quick to pay lip service to
o p e a i a g "student - ad
ministration dialogue" on the
issues. Bat the dialogue
always consists of either the
administration outright ig
noring the issue or shoving it
off on a committee where it is
lost in the shuffle or the
committee's reco m m e a d a
tisni are ignored: Students
quickly tire of this treatment,
but instead of getting con
structively angry and doing
something they tarn back to
feetr books and parties
having leaned their lesson in
tb American way.
THE LESSON TO BE
learned is this: that no
government or institution
with power win yield that
power to its subjects without
a struggle. It is natural to
want to keep authority as a
means of perpetuating
oneself.
Certainly it is best to go
through the proper channels
first, but when the "proper
channels" refuse to listen to
you time and time again it's
time for more direct action.
And small concessions by the
administration must not be
taken as a sign of victory.
They should rather be viewed
as the master throwing the
dog a bone hoping to keep
him quiet for a while.
So let's press for significant
change on this campus.
Students all over the country
are fighting to get a truly
demeeratic society. Let's do
something this year.
Pete Johnsea
Tuesday night's SDS rally
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seems to me to be a typical
case of unthinking radicalism.
Purportedly, SDS members
believe in making mis a more
democratic society and yet
they were ia essence saying
that ROTC should not be
taught on a university cam
pus. This act seems to me to
be antithetical to the basic
premises of their organiza
tion. All fields of knowledge in
cluding military science
should be taught at a
university as far as this is
possible. Further, I am happy
that ROTC is taught at
universities if it is to be
taught at all because at least
here the future officers might
be exposed to enlightening
philosophies that can in
fluence them to be somewhat
broad-minded in their view as
to what the purposes of a
military should be.
This is in contrast to
specialized schools which
would probably train them to
be extremely narrow-minded
militarists (or facisti as you
like). I would hope that SDS
members w o n 1 d more
carefully consider the im
plications of their protests
it is, in my opinion, my ewn
and their obligation.
Thomas S. Deeds
Justice, education
of teachers
by Paul A. Olson
I have been asked to write about what we
are doing in education, particularly in the education
of teachers, to make people a little more
sophisticated intellectually, a little more humane,
and a little more cognizant of, and committed
to .the public service. We aren't doing enough.
One notes with interest that Gary Hill finds
that Lincoln doctors and Lincoln lawyers are not
ready to accept black people as equal partners
in their businesses though their businesses are
public businesses supnorted by public pro
fessional schools and public research, policed by
public agencies and using public facilities (hospitals
and law courts) as the primary centers from which
to derive income.
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EDITOR'E NOTE: This is the first in a series
of editorials directed by those in education.
Paul Olson is director of Trl-Universlty Proj
ects, a combination of the University of Nebras
ka, Washington University and New York Uni
versity working together to examine the Lan
guage Arts curriculum in elementary education.
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It is pleasant to be reassured by responsible
opinion that those who guard our lives and plead1
for "justice for all people" are racists in their
inner hearts. It is also pleasant to recall that
such people are the most highly educated people
in our midst, most of them educated at University
of Nebraska professional schools at the public ex
ipense and, in part, by tax dollars paid into the
till by black people.
What pertains to the professional education of
doctors and lawyers also pertains to the education
of teachers. Few of us who are teachers show
the effects of education in our professional
behavior; few of us have had a broad education
ourselves; e. g. the Coleman report shows that
few teachers in America have any profound
knowledge about, or experience with, races or
cultures other than their own. Few of us have
any sense of what it would be like to use education
as a serious agent in the confrontation of the crises
which we face (though almost everyone in education
says that the solution to these crises lies "in educa
tion)." Higher Education does not serve the wretched
of the earth white or black, .rural or urban
in the wav in which it serves the rich. For
examn'e with regard to the education of teachers:
Most of our teachers-in-training at the
T'niversitv of Nebraska practice-teach in fairly af
fluent suburban or urban schools and almost none
practice-teach in hard core ghetto areas or in the
counties of Nebraska where rural poverty is a
real problem.
Most of them accept jobs in upper class
suburban districts and are encouraged to do so
by our faculty both in the College of Arts and
Sciences and In Teachers College.
Almost none of them receive serious train'ng
in the English department or in the Teachers Col
lege in what may be called the dialects (or
languages) of poverty though about 15 of the
children in our schools are hung up because the
teacher does not know their language (plantation
dialects. Spanish, Indian languages, etc.).
The historical traditions represented by our
history and social sciences departments (despite
the addition of black history) are predominately
those of successful northern European tvpes and
not those of Southern European poor people. Africa
and the West Indies, or those of the Indian and
SDanish groiros which created the culture of Diego
Rivers and Cesar Chavez. (Our Latin American
studies program could perhaps become a center
of studv for teachers wl,o aspired to teach, say,
the children of farm workers).
The cultures of Nebraska Czech and Low
German peoples and to some degree those of
other ethnic 'peasant' groups have been
systematically destroyed by the public schools of
the state in time oast (of Manley's research and
Cather's novels). The schools are in the process
of destroying the indieenous cultural roots of more
recent immigrants who are not rich and powerful:
Jatvians. Negroes, urbanized American Indians.
No fundamental respect for diversity of culture,
especially diversity amon? poor peooie. is learned
by most teachers-in-training (or for that matter,
bv most students) at this university or very many
others.
We give no scientific training which takes
cognizance of the cognative styles of cultures other
than our own.
We recruit few teachers from below the
poverty line.
We assess teachers-in-training on our recom
mendation forms on the basis of their capacity
to accept "what Is" rather than on the basis of
their capacity to create "what ought to be."
Obviously many men of good will in this
university are trying to get a handle on the nro
bleins which I have described. I have been part
of the problem myself. But our commitment to
the noilon that justice will be achieved through
education is more nominal than real. Our College
of Education is a miserably nndersupported place
(compared with our College of Medicine). The
Educational College hasn't had much to work with:
I see no prospect of its having a great deal more
to work with in the future. Our College of Arts
and Sciences (which does most of the training
9f teachers) seldom assigns distinguished, highly
paid people to the teaching of courses which are
particularly relevant to the intellectual life of
fUsacbers. These ought to be the best and most
(sophisticated courses in the college.
Many of my collegues in Arts and Science
treat vocation of teaching with utter contempt
(de!lte their liberal sentiments in other areas).
We may not change very much. We may be
too busy turning out Lincoln's lovely doctors and
lawyers to turn out very many teachers equipped
to awaken the minds of the children of all of
our citizens.
Observations
Contrary to public rumor, the background, used
in the fashion pictures of Wednesday's Daflr Ne
Sgtots WCTe nne tte Univerlty' student 'park-
CoroeUas Elbelhurt
