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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.
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PAGE 4
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1971
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1971
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
PAGE 5
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