The specter of Old Paint
An Issue that many might consider beating a dead
horse could beconme a very live topic again after Monday
morning's meeting of the Board of Regents.
The special investigating committee appointed by ASUN
to look into certain aspects of the Michael Davis case
intends to present the Regents with a 35-page report. The
report, if it bears out, will debunk two of the four reasons
that the Board gave for not hiring Davis.
The two charges in question are 1) that Davis made
certain offensive remarks at a reception for Robben Flemm
ing, president of the University of Michigan and 2) that
Davis called Flemming's administration "repressive" and
"non-communicative" at a legislative hearing.
The committee claims to have a statement from an
official of the Michigan administration that Davis never
appeared at the reception. They also state that Flemming
told them in a telephone interview that he never saw
Davis at the reception and that he had never heard of
Davis' calling his administration repressive or non-com- ,
municative. Committee members indicate that Flemming
;said he would reaffirm these comments in a letter to
them. .
One of the other two charges against Davis was that
he had been arrested and convicted of a charge of trespass
ing (with several hundred other people in a demonstration)
but president of the.. Board, Robert Raun, admitted that
the members were not sure this was a fact at the time
they made their decision. If the committee's findings are
true, that leaves but one charge that Davis had conducted
a one-man sit-in in the Michigan Administration Building.
More importantly, it would bring the fact-finding ability
of the Board's investigator up for censure and would cast
.grave doubt on the- Regents' decision. The only matter
more important than that will be the way in which the
Regents respond after they are presented with this new
evidence.
Last chance for PACE
This is the last week that students will have the
opportunity to sign PACE petitions indicating that they
want to increase tuition payments by $3.50 a semester
to fund scholarships for low-income students.
More than 5,000 signatures have already been turned
in according to Steve Fowler, chairman of PACE. This
figure represents one of the largest demonstrations of student
interest in the past decade and constitutes twice the turnout
for last year's ASUN elections.
The proposal has received widespread backing including
endorsements from 21 campus organizations and seven
dormitory governments.
Fowler indicated that two-thirds of Nebraska's middle
and upper-class high school graduates continue to college
while fewer than one-fifth of the low-income graduates
can do the same. This cycle of under-education for the
poor can only be broken when members of the middle
class make a commitment to help the less advantaged.
PACE is such a commitment it represents a more
lasting and significant gesture to the poor than Christmas
gifts. If you haven't signed a petition yet, come to the
PACE booth in the Union and sign one. If you have
a petition, try to complete it and turn it in to the ASUN
office or the booth in the Union.
Time for student input
On page seven there is a questionnaire drawn up by
the Legislative Liaison Committee of ASUN to determine
what improvements students feel the University needs and
what importance they attach to these changes. The results
of the questionnaires will be used by the committee to
direct their efforts in dealing with state legislators and
outstate speaking engagements.
Take a moment to fill out the form and return it
to the ASUN office, 334 Nebraska Union, because the ability
of the committee to represent the real interests or the
student body rests upon each student's willingness to express
them.
THE NEBRASKAN
Telephones: Editor: 472-25M, Business: 471-2590, Newt: 472-2589. Second clan
postage paid Incoln, Neb.
Subscription ere IS per semester or M.SO per year. Published Monday,
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday during the echool year except during vaca
tions and exam periods. Member ot the Intercollegiate Press, National Educa
tional Advertising Service.
The Nebraskan I a student publication. Independent of the University of Neb
raska's administration, faculty and student government.
Address: The Nebraskan
34 Nebraska Union
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, Nebraska 660
dltorial Staff
Editor: Kelley Baker; Managing Editor: Connie Winkler; Newt Editor: Bill
Smitherman; Sports Editors: Jim Johnston and Roger Rlfef Nebraskan Staff
Writers: Gary Seacrest, John Dvorak, Mick Morlarty, Marsha Bangert, Dave
Brink, Steve Stressor, Pat McTee, Carol Gowtschlus, Motite Gerlach, Charles
Harpster; Photographers: Howard Rosenberg, Mike Haymani Entertainment
Editor: Fred Elsnhart; Literary Editor: Alan Boye; News Assistant: Andrea
Thompson; Copy Editors: Laura Partsch, Jim Gray, Warren Obr, Blythe
Erickson; Night New Editor: Tom Lansworth; Night New Assistant: Leo
Schleicher.
Business Staff
Business Manager: Pat DiNatale; Coordinator: Sandra Carter; Subscription
and Claulfled Ad Manager; Jan Boatman; Salesman: Greg Scott, t. Jan
Kldweil, J. J. Shields; Circulation Managers: Chuck Baiduff, Barry Pllger,
John Waggoner.
PAGE 4
"I fuE TALKED T At JwE TLKD Tb A fwOv-,
Djgfcd 1 5sl im jwSll sM4
Possibility Man munches
Videometaphysics:
by COUNTRY TED
As it is the ridicu
metaphysician's task to create
and expound new truths and
falsehoods, it Is also his duty to
dispell old ones, no matter how
dearly beloved they may be.
Therefore, my friends, I must
warn you that I come today not
to praise some of our fondest
spiritual myths but to cast
doubt upon the very nature of
Television Metaphysics.
"What is man," we have
learned early to lisp, "Oh
Great Network, that thou art
mindful of him. Thou hast
created man in thine image.
We are nurtured in the womb
as imperfect analogues to the
television nurtured in Its con
veyor belt We draw strength
from our earthly food in a way
as to make us conscious of the
spiritual energy which sparks
the Everlasting Soul o f
Television." This, my friends, I
shudder to proceed, may well
be untrue.
Though I will freely grant
that television is the immediate
source of our knowledge of the'
world (through the news, Dark
Shadows, etc.), yea our con
ceptions about language and
the entire philosophy which
ensues; yet there is strong
evidence to believe that in
telligent men existed even
before the advent and nativity
of television. Picture, if you
will, blind Homer and blind
Milton, authors of mediocre, if
not outstanding verse; yet they
never learned grammar
THE NEBRASKAN
through cigarette commercials
and had nought to guide them
but Radio and the Muse.
Shakespeare in his day risked
infamy when sceptical of the
emni-essence of television, he
wrote, "Out, out, brief picture
tube, all the world's a BBC and
we are but poor stand-up com
medians who joke and smile
our hour upon the air and then
are heard no more.
I share his skepticism, and
perhaps, many of us do. Some
of us have probably known
people who, by some pagan
principle, have lived worthy
and even seemingly enlighten
ed lives without television. I
have come to fear the radical
believer who would Inquisition
all those who dare blaspheme
against the holy shrine. I, also
fear the governmental system
so entrenched In TV
metaphysics that no one has
yet proposed the separation of
television and state. No one has
yet brought a case before the
Supreme Court involving the
use of television in public
schools.
And as great a danger I see it
in my ridicu-barometric
capacity, is our falling into the
trap of subconscient adherence
to tele video-metaphysical
principles, such as the Limited
Channel Theory, through which
we come upon an extremely
limited view of reality. Unwit
tingly we assume that there are
a limited number of ways of
seeing things as there are a
limited number of channels on
What hath television rot
the set (UHF and cable TV
notwithstanding). In terms of
inter-personal relations, this
leads us to butt our heads
against the brick walls of each
other's logic, failing to realize
that the other person may
simply be tuned to another
channel. In vain we try to
catagerize experience into
networks and time slots which
simply are not grand enough in
scope.
If TV metaphysics is to be
sufficient explanation it must
need be a ubiquitous set with a
thousand electric channels, and
ail blasting through our soul.
Until such an event I feel it my
ridicu-humanitarlan duty to
warn, "Be wary!"
POSSIBILITY MAN PAYS A
VISIT TO THE HAMBURGER
WIZARD
Possibility Man was browsing
through the dusty volumes in
the bowels of the Mulberry
Mountain Institute for Higher
and Higher Learnin' Library
one day and ran across a
curious work, The Hamburger
Wizard, He read the inscription:
"When he beheld the noble
hound,
He found nought but fine
ground round."
His curiosity aroused,
Possibility Man read on to find
that the wizard had set out as
an optimistic youth to become
a universal genius. He
mastered music from King
David to Gracie Slick, hunting
from Diana to Ben Pearson,
linguistics from Babel to the
Beat Poets, and was learning
the culinary art on that fateful
day vhen engrossed with
McDonaldian mysticism he
chanced to be locked in a
refrigerated room with three
tons of ground beef at closing
time Friday. By the time he
was released Monday morning
the cold had somehow
permanently altered the
sensitive parts of his mind and
fused them for life with the
nature of hamburger. His fate
was fixed; from that day
forward he was no longer open
to the multitudinous
possibilities offered by the
universe, but sought to un
derstand and control his
universe by seeing everything
in terms of hamburger, as so
many of us seek to understand
through arbitrary labeling.
Intrigued, Possibility Man set
out to pay a visit to this strange
monomaniac. He found the
wizard in a dark little bun
shaped cottage near the
stockyards, canting as though
to vivify an effigy made of lean
ground beef which bore an un
canny resemblance to Helen of
Troy. Bizarre murals adorned '
the cottage walls, and
Possibility Man could vaguely
make out Ronald McDonald
and Wimpy among the painted
forms. An incense burner gave
off the odor of Adoph's Meat
Tenderizer.
"How now, brown cow?" said
the Hamburger Wizard. "Over
3 Billion Sold," said Possibility
Man, looking for a means of
approach, 4 what's cooking?"
"Only the greatest burger
ever," said the wizard, with a
gleam in his eye not unlike a
hot greased griddle. "Bigger
than the Empire States Ham
burger?" "Yes, indeedy," said
the wizard. "Higher than the
Eiffel Burger?" "You're get
ting warmer. "More im
pressive than Mount
Rushburger?" "You're
medium rare," said the wizard.
"Well what?" asked Possibility
Man, exasperated, "Come
here," said the wizard beckon
ing Possibility Man to where
the Von Laserburger telescope
was mounted pointing
heavenward. Peering into the
eyepiece our hero was amazed
to see what can only be
described as a celestial meat
ball. 'It's what we've come to
call Saturn," the wizard said,
calmly. "Oh my God!" ex
claimed Possibility Man
dumbfounded, "and those rings
are . . ."
"Yes," the wizard confirmed,
"onion rings, and I," the
wizard continued, "will be the
first to land a manned pickle on
It!" The Hamburger Wizard
told Possibility Man how the
sun was a giant hydrogen
fusion briquette and all the
planets were made of roasting
hamburger. Possibility Man
figured it was time to go.
"Good luck," he said.
"Thank you, and, oh, by the
way, I would gladly pay you
Tuesday for a . . ."
Another defense
Dear Editor,
Having read the letter
"Molding Putty" by Scott Hof
fman and Paul Belitz in the
December 11 edition of the
Nebraskan, I must conclude
that they are offering both bad
grammar and bad taste.
While we at CUE do not
claim to be certain precisely
what education ought to be, we
are reasonably certain what it
ought not to be:
We desire to- detach educa
tion from the political hokum
we witnessed on college cam
puses across the nation last
spring.
We hope to create a fertile
academic atmosphere where
the processes of creative
thought may be unhindered by
the unintelligible political fan
tasies of student activism,
and
We hope to increase
academic incentive to
reasonably intelligent human
beings in order to prevent
"stenciling on a distilled mind"
the "training" deemed
necessary by the too-often seen
and heard political theorists of
. the New Left.
I seriously doubt if it is
"generally accepted" that 80
of a college education
originates outside the
classroom, for the college is the
classroom along with its sup
porting libraries and
laboratories and a college
education must be pursued
within these.
What is learned outside them -is
not per se a college educa
tion and if it tends to "relevant
participation in the meaning of
life" such as I suspect Mr.
Hoffman and Mr. Belitz are
advocating, it is not education
at all, but merely activity that
passes the time of day.
Robert Vlasak, Chairman
CUE
Overkill
Dear Editor, ...
Those of us who attended the
Godard film, Sympathy for
the Devil at Sheldon last Fri
day were treated to film art at
its finest. The many comments
of "Right on," It was a Now!'
and "what a genius" shows
that most Nebraskans have got
their heads in the right place
when it comes to culture. I
would hope that this letter
might clarify the film to these
misguided few who felt it was
boring, pretentious, and not
worth the $1.50 it cost to get
in.
Godard was able to transcend
the gulf between reality and
meaning and merge the two
into a homogeneous collage of
fact and fantasy. Not only was
the image of past reality pro
jected into the every-present
NOW by switching back and
forth from the Stones
recording session, but the au
dience Is able to project
themselves into the future
thereby completing the full
circuit. I am sure not everyone
was able to grasp the culture
implication of this manifesta
tion of time. For those people
there were still hundreds of
other motifs and themes.
The use of Freudian sex
symbols was one of the more
fiatant aspects of the film. As
you remember, Mick Jagger
was singing into a microphone
on an extended boom, while
Letters
Keith Richards and the others
were just on an ordinary boom.
I needn't tell you what that
means! In the other scenes
microphones are stuck in the
black militants face, a very
erotic shaped microphone is
pointed at democracy. She is
erected in the end into the sky
on an extended crane with the
most blatant sexual implica
tions, especially when you
remember that Jagger was
also singing into an extended
boom! Eureka!
Not to get too involved with
the obvious, bat the other
aspect of the film to remember
was the use of comic relief in
terspersed between the reading
of the novel off screen which
kept us in a high state of sexual
and intellectual arousal. The
. one I remember most was the
black militants passing the
guns over the pile of wrecked
cars when they could have just
carried them around to cover
the bodies of the white girls.
Then, when they did it twice I
was almost in stitches! I'm
sure those who were there
remember it well.
I will have to let the rest of
the interpretation be up to you,
because I don't want to spoil
the joy of discovery for anyone
who was there. For those who
weren't I can only say, "You
may be $1.50 richer, but you
missed a great work of art,"
and issue this warning. The
next time the patrons of the art
bring a real film art
masterpiece, go and see it at
Sheldon, that oasis of culture.
Jerry Soucie (507-66-0940)
President, Culture Vultures
of America Inc.
False security
Dear Sir:
I was delighted to read that
the all-University grade point
average has risen in the last
' three semesters from 2.469 to
2.775 thanks to just two grading
procedure changes and that
"the number of undergraduates
suspended for unsatisfactory
' scholarship has been cut in
half.' (Nebraskan, Dec. 10,
1970). It demonstrates, if
nothing else, the potential of
arithmetic and administrative
manipulation as a tool for the
redemption of mediocre
students and suggests even
broader application.
For now not only is instant
academic excellence within
grasp of the marginal student,
but the university itself can
also find itself at the top of the
Big 8 academically as well as
on the football field. Moreover,
without the expense to the tax
payer for something as
superfluous as a library.
For if we carry on the logic
behind these grade changes we
should give no grades below a
C entirely eliminating the
embarrassment of academic
suspension and ideally
register no grades below an A,
giving Nebraska the highest
scholastic average, if one of the
lowest scholastic levels, In the
country. This would be much
more effective than recent
proposals that no "F's" should
be recorded and that upper
division related courses can
"cover" (Le., obliterate) a lower
division grade deficiency. By the
way, why not help superior stu
dents as well, by giving credit
for an A plus?
Unfortunately, to change
grade procedures doesn't
obliterate the existence of the
mediocre student who is in
creasingly coddled by the
university. The whole exercise
is a sham, however ad
ministratively astute it might
appear, and helps explain why
it is not just a lack of funds
that keeps the academic level
of this university from being at
the top of the Big Eight. While
a certain well-known Nebraska
politician may cherish
"mediocrity", it is unfortunate
that the university should also
encourage it amongst the
students.
Charles Sargent
Instructor, Geography
OD of inaccuracies
Dear Editor.
Steve Voss's excellent letter
in the Dec. 10 Nebraskan con
cerning the FSM meeting
prelty well exposed the
overdose of inaccuracies of the
account of the FSM meeting as
well as the editorial by Connie
Winkler. I don't feel there is a
real need to give additional or
coinciding documentation to the
inaccuracies Rather, I would
like to point out briefly some of
the conclusions that can be
drawn from the matter in an
effort to make the experience
an educational one.
First, we found out that the
police are capable of overrac
ting and do overreact. Not in
all situations or in dealing with
all groups, just some. That
"some" being when members
of a peace and constructive
change type group is involv
ed. The Pershing Rifles or Block
and Bridle or the Young
Republicans could have had a
meeting in the same building
as FSM and would not have
suffered the consequences of an
uptight police force. Uptight
police mean uptight situations.
Small wonder the uptight
situations happen when some
radical group is involved with
the police.
Secondly, the immediate
response of the press was the
usual one of condemnation even
before the facts were known.
All of the bad things were
assumed, even before a
reasonable evaluation could be
made. When in doubt con
demn the radicals.
That kind of natural reaction
is not a credit to the objectivity
of an honest news source.
Newspaper people have an
obligation that forbids them
from making the same
mistakes that any other
observer can afford to make.
Another consequence of this
kind of reporting tends to give
groups like FSM bad press.
Any other group could have a
meeting and decide to spend
their money on a key party and
as long as they went through
the standard procedure, they
would not get bad press. But let
FSM plan a dance so it can
raise money to feed and clothe
needy peopk or try and stop a
bloody war in an unusual way,
and paw they are the ones
that get the bad press. That
seems to be m inequity of the
system.
However, I would like to
commend the Nebraskan for
not being intimidated by cer
tain intolerant people who
plague us. It is encouaging that
the Nebraskan is running the
ad from the Informer keep
up the good work in that
area.
John K. Hansen
Mike Barret
MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1970
MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1970
THE NEBRASKAN
PAGE 5