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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 23, 1971)
lii miih iiiiiinminii nun iimi linn i I n il 1 1 i ir iiiimiii i mi iiniiumi miri torn braden ft Evers not discouraged Rap with Ely All too often students have little contact with the top University administrators. However, the head man from Student Affairs wants to change this situation. Starting today Ely Meyerson, interim executive dean of Student Affairs, will hold a weekly informal rap session in which he plans "to take on all comers and discuss all issues." He will be available to talk with students on an individual or group basis every Thursday from 2-4 p.m in room 232 of the Nebraska Union. Because of the recent staff changes in Student Affairs, Meyerson believes the sessions are necessary to "open up and sustain channels of communication." Meyerson's open rap session is a welcome innovation for this large bureaucratic University. Hopefully, the interim dean can come up with other ideas from his talks with students which will help make student life more attractive. Meyerson says the rap sessions should continue even if the University accepts an ASUN proposal to appoint an ombudsman. This makes good sense since an ombudsman would simply investigate individual student complaints, while the sessions will give Student Affairs an opportunity to find out student needs and attitudes from which they can develop new programs if necessary. If you have something to tell the head of Student Affairs, then be sure to attend the rap session. The sessions will produce little good if students don't take advantage of them. Gary Seacrest TONIC survives It looks like TONIC (Tutors of Nebraska Indian Children) is going to stay on its feet for at least one more semester. Since September 1969 about 40 UNL students have been boarding a chartered bus in front of Andrews Hall every Thursday afternoon during the school year. They've been traveling 100 miles to the Winnebago Indian Reservation in northeast Nebraska to teach and mostly play with elementary school children there. First the tutors were funded by Tri-University, a now defunct experiment in progressive elementary education at the University. Then they were helped by Training Teachers of Teachers, the current UNL experiment in progressive elementary education. This year TTT doesn't have the money to help them, either. But the tutors have scraped up enough to keep going. They won't have a chartered bus, but they'll be able to pay for gas money to get to and from the reservation in private cars. A four-hour round trip, a cold box lunch, and three hours of screaming kids are not ingredients that add up to the most comfortable way to spend Thursday nights. Yet TONIC is one of the most persistent groups on campus. To see why, you'd have to have been on one of the bus trips, just as the tutors hit town. You'd have seen kids come running from everywhere to meet that bus wherever the tutors were setting up shop that night. Thursday nights are one of the main events of the week to the elementary school children in Winnebago. And that's why the TONIC tutors are determined to stay together. They want the Indian children to remember at least one time in their lives when white people didn't let them down. Steve Strasser i' l liliinniii iMiinn.iviirminwirni-tTrminrtiii mrni tuimmniniMmiMifaTiiM inniiiMiivwffl Telephones editor: 472 2588, newt: 472 2589, advertisimj 472 2590. Second class postage rate paid at Lincoln, Nebraska, The Daily Nebraskan is a student publication, independent of the University of Nebraska' administration, faculty and student government. Address: The Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68508. Surr Mt'ri' rioiiliii" iimtIv. IhiI llil".' Dear Editor: Since the time of its inception, CUE has enjoyed rather remarkable success as a group to concentrate on campus issues and problems. The battles over the strike are settling down, though, and the Courier II, operating from a base we helped to establish last year, is now independent and claims a circulation of 21,000. The final barrier came down at the last ASUN meeting last year, when even Steve Tiwald went so far as to admit that CUE had served a purpose. Now where do we go from here? We note that the present student government promises to provide an "ombudsman" to oil the bureaucratic wheels a little. They aren't the first to do so, by any means. Somehow the job never seems to get done. There are too many practical problems. Should he be a student, in which case he wouldn't have time to do the job well, or a non-student, essentially just another bureaucrat? Will he be paid? If so, by whom? Above all, to whom is he responsible? It is here that the very loosely organized but already existing structure of CUE might be useful. CUE has the advantage of being available right now, of being open to both Jong and short-term association, and of being independent of both ASUN and the administration. To begin with, we have initiated action to get more of the offices in the Administration Building to stay open over the lunch hour by staggering lunch breaks. Dean Chatfield has agreed to implement this idea as soon as the remodeling and rearrangement of the offices is completed. Similar action is being taken on things like parking problems and the ID distribution mess. Clearly, we can hardly expect to do much alone. Where we go from here depends entirely on the kind of response we get. Consequently, we propose a meeting of any and all interested students on Tuesday, Sept. 28 at 8:30 p.m. in the Union, to discuss gripes and to recruit help. For this to be successful, there will have to be support from all corners of the student community, and we solicit this kind of support, despite the controversial nature of CUE's past activities. If you are interested in being a person in a school, instead of a cog in a machine, come to the meeting, and get to work! Questions, call me at 477-1281. Mary Cannon Chairman Campus CUE michael (o. ) nelson Voter registration: youth power Dear Editor, This letter is to protest the despicable treatment of this campus's most oppressed group. Of course we speak of The Rockets, who have been given the short end of the stick in every attempt at eliminating discrimination on the UNL campus. And small wonder; we don't even like ourselves. The Rockets, serve an integral cultural function through their determined, unending fight against the evils of modern music-that which passes as "rock;";-Qur never-ending battle to "restore J rock 'n roll to its rightful place of respect in the eyes of the common daddy-o on the street corner goes on against all the odds. In addition. The Rocket Grease and Freedom Party has saved the political face of this campus even though the school is losing other parts of its anatomy with remarkable regularity. May we suggest, as an initial attempt to ameliorate the horrendous situation, that a Rocket Studies course be initiated on this campus to explore all facets of the Rockets. And if there ain't no action we's gonna make somebody around this here place wish they ain't never heard the name "Rocket." The Rockets (Who else would speak up for us?) JACKSON, Miss. The first black man to run for governor of Mississippi rates his chances as good if he can raise enough money for television in the two weeks before Nov. 2. Charles Evers puts the figures this way: Of 1.2 million registered voters in Mississippi, 770,000 are white and 301,000 are black (about one-third of eligible black voters are not registered). But on past performance, not more than 700,000 votes will be cast. If Evers can get 80 of a heavy black vote, or about 225,000 votes, and nearly 30 of the white vote or a little over 125,000 votes, he will be governor. The Evers figures are plausible. Moreover, he is running a compaign based on proved strength in bringing industry and payroll to the little town of Fayette which elected him mayor. But there are some weak underpinnings to the Evers campaign and they are embedded inthe reality of Mississippi ways. Weak underpinning No. 1 is the dubiousness of the more aged among the black voters. To blacks raised in fear of self-assertion, a black candidate spells trouble. "They'll think I'm gettin' uppity," said an elderly black woman refusing an Evers bumper sticker. Weak underpinning No. 2 is doubt about a heavy white student vote, on which Evers is counting. Mississippi students are relatively apolitical. "The first interest of a freshman," said one state university president in his baccalaureate, "should be to support the football team." Some campuses prohibit virtually all political activity. Weak underpinning No. 3 is that Mississippi still has large pockets of white racism, and Evers is having difficulty getting appearances before crowds-such as at county fairs where, candidates for governor traditionally appear. This weakness points in turn to the biggest and most important weakness of the Evers campaign which is that the mayor of Fayette is already $16,000 in the red without a dime to reserve television time. Minus television time to try to show himself as he is, Evers faces the probability of a backlash white vote in eastern Mississippi, an exceedingly painful prospect to a man who has devoted his political career to fighting racism, white and black. The Evers campaign slogan "Evers for Everybody," tries to get across the candidate's dedication to equal treatment for all. So did his remark the other day as he was introduced before a convention of 2,000 white sportsmen. Somebody shouted, "Go home." Evers responded instantly: "I am home." The candidate is making a big issue of the Mississippi Highway Patrol, 100 white, and according to the Scranton Commission, "among the poorest trained units of its kind in America."" But his prescriptions do not meet all the usual liberal canons. He defends Gov. Rockefeller's handling of Attica prisoners, and suggests he might have moved more quickly. "As I understand it, those prisoners committed serious crimes. Serious crime must be punished seriously," says the man whose brother was murdered on his lawn. "Don't give me any of that black racism," he is fond of saying to militant Northerners. But it will be hard to tell Mississippi voters that Evers is prejudiced against any kind of racism unless they can meet him, and without television many of them will not be permitted to hear him. Win or lose, Evers thinks he has started a revolution in Mississipi. "That's what's great about this country," he remarked the other evening after a day of speechmaking. "We're going to have a revolution without firing a gun; just by walking up to a box and dropping a little slip of paper in it." Is modern man too free ? Michael (O. J.) Nelson is temporary chairman of the League of Young Voters. The week of November 1-5 could be one of the most important weeks in the history of this community. These dates mark Lincoln's first voter registration drive aimed at the newly enfranchised 18 to 20 year olds. This drive will offer students the option of registering in either Lancaster County, or by mail in their home counties. The drive will besponsored by ASUN, Nebraska Student Government Association, and the League of Young Voters. This is not The first campus voter drive, so why all the emphasis? This is the first drive to be run by and for young people. The League's purpose is non-partisan. It's leadership is bi-partisan and its chief characteristic is concern. Concern that young Nebraskans register to vote; concern that the voice of our state's young people be heard. But which voice? True, young people have different outlooks and political leanings. But still there is the THE DAILY NEBRASKAN "voice," and like all voices it has a timbre made by combining various tones and pitches. This voice can be heard on the issues of government spending and priorities, reform, racism, and defense. Youth care where their tax money goes. They care about this country and its leadership. They care about educational expenditures and the environment. They care, and they WILL BE HEARD! But only if they vote, and remember a ballot cannot be cqst by an unregistered person. Therein lies the League's commitment to help young people from all walks of life to register and vote. But despite this commitment, the League cannot do it alone. In the end, it is up to you, the student, to show that you care. The leadership of one political party has already made dear its belief that the newly enfranchised citizens of Nebraska will not register in any great number. It only takes a little while to register, and the importance is overwhelming. The student body at UNL has the potential to control several city and county officials, at least one Regent seat, not to mention a Congressional district. Had young people been able to vote in earlier elections it is highly possible that now there would not be a draft call, a Vietnam, or a housing shortage. Indeed, all things are possible, but only if you register and vote. In order to facilitate the November 1-5 Drive, there will be a meeting this Sunday at 7 p.m. in the Nebraska Union. The community is invited to help get this drive going. If you have any special talents or if you would just like to work in a voter drive, please come. People will be needed to make signs, canvass dorms and Greek houses and to do many little tasks that help make voter registration drives successful. We must act now to assure that our voice is heard. Many have been writing their congressmen for years, many have taken to the streets, and even more have sat back in dispair and frustration knowing that their pleas would go unheeded. If the combined effort that has been put into lobbying, marches and canvassing during the last few years could be poured into this drive in November, then the youth of this state would find that they do have the potential to change things, that they do have political muscle. H. L. Mencken once said that "democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." The young people in this state are not all of one mind, but they know what they want, and deserve to get it. Its been a long time comin'. Register your concern, register and vote! by Jacquin Sanders Newsweek Feature Service B. F. Skinner is the country's most honored and influential psychologist. He is also a humorous, good-natured gentleman whose ideas have lately begun to terrify a good many people. "Traditional concepts of individual freedom and dignity have made an immeasurable contribution, but they have served their purpose," he says. "By now, I think you can attribute most of the problems of the world to them." That is the theme of Skinner's new book, "Beyond Freedom and Dignity," and its amplification along with the "solutions" advocated by the 67-year-old Harvard scholar have shocked and horrified libertarians who never much liked Skinner's brand of behavioral psychology in the first place. Skinner's chief target is the concept of "autonomous man"-the belief that individuals are moved to actionsby "inner forces" and by their own sense of right and wrong. Behaviorist that he is, Skinner dismisses such "autonomy." Man, he holds, moves as he has been conditioned to move, either for rewards or for fear of punishment. The trouble is. Skinner believes, that the conditioning-the controls of behavior-now in effect in the world no longer works. "Parents control children and, for that matter, children control parents, and they all do it badly," he says. "Employers control employes and employes control employers, and they do it badly, too. Everything is done in the name of freedom and individual rights and look at the results. "We have overpopulation because people have the right to copulate and pay no attention to the consequences. We have a deteriorating environment because people have the right to use up the natural resources. We have the threat of a nuclear holocaust because everybody has the right to protect himself." The solutions to the "terrible troubles" of Western society, r says Skinner, is nothing less than a diminution of some of the personal freedoms that man has fought for so many centuries to achieve. There must be a new "technology of behavior" in which man will be subjected to vast, systematized behavioral controls. These controls would at once eliminate the kind of "selfish" actions that lead to antisocial conduct. They would also be designed to reinforce altruistic behavior. "We must delegate the control of the population as a whole to specialists," he writes, "to police, priests, teachers, therapists and so on, with their specialized reinforcers and their codified contingencies." Heatedly, Skinner rejects the "1984" Orwellian implications. "I'm not for giving up any freedoms we now enjoy," he says, "but I don't recognize much of what goes on today as freedom." He believes, moreover, that the culture now gives people too much time to do unproductive things: "Gambling, for instance, or drunkenness, drug addiction, sex, spectatorship. You watch people beat each other up in professional football, that Roman circus. We're getting to the point where we just don't have very much to do." A storm of denunciation has already enveloped Skinner in academic communities, in the U.S. press and in Britain. But beyond their philosophic distaste for "large-scale human conditioning," the critics are hard put to dismiss Skinner's ideas His background, his scholarship and his achievements are as formidable as those of any living academic. Since the publication of his "Behavior of Organisms" in 1938, B. F. (for Burrhus Frederic) Skinner has been the world's pre-eminent behavioral psychologist. Other works, including, "Walden Two," a Utopian novel which anticipated many of the themes of his new work, have increased his reputation. Several years ago. Skinner stopped doing research to think, to organize his findings and to write. "Beyond Freedon and Dignity" is his first attempt to set down a comprehensive philosophy. ft i . I I : i ! I ! k liirfflTiwa urn mi in 1 i' PAGE 4 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1971 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1971 THE DAILY NEBRASKAN PAGE 5 I tU I