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THE DAILY TAR HEEL
Friday, January 17. 1D69
mm
76 Years of Editorial Freedom
Viyne Hurder, Editor
BUI Staton, Business Manager
President
Down And
President Lyndon Johnson
leaves office in a few days and there
probably won't be many tears shed
over his vacating the office.
Despite all the bitter hatred of
him that is present in our society
because of his policies, he has been,
in our opinion, an excellent
President. In the same breath, we'd
like to emphasize, however, that we
are glad to see him go.
Johnson has done an excellent
job in getting the United States
partially committed to the
alleviation of poverty in our
country, both black and white. He
has used his crude political tactics
that cause so many persons to
dislike him to get many progressive
laws passed. These include the Civil
Rights Bills of 1964 and 1965, the
Open Housing Law, Medicare, the
Economic Opportunity Act of
1964, the Appalachian Regional
Development Act, an expanded aid
to education program, and an
expanded housing program to
name just a few.
Most of these acts he urged
through Congress despite the fact
that many Americans were opposed
to them at that time. In addition,
many of them established the
groundwork for the gradual
dissolution of his power base. For
instance, the Economic
Opportunity Act with its
community program made it
possible for powerful organizations
to spring up in cities and states
independent of the local political
moguls. It is for this reason that the
community action programs will
probably be eliminated this year.
The one affair everyone believes
he failed miserably at is the
Vietnam War; however, the blame
for that lies not with him so much
as it does with the American
people. In this instance he did not
try to lead the American people
into a better life but pursued the
course of action the American
people and the State Department,
in their paranoic fear of
communists, dictated. He should be
blamed for not being intelligent
enough to recognize that what was
happening in Vietnam was revolt by
the native South Vietnamese (not
North Vietnamese) against the
tyranny of the Diem regime.
Unfortunately, all of America's
leaders probably woujd have done
v.v.v.v.v.v.v.v.v.v.v.v.sv.v.v.v.v.'.v.v.
Support APO
Want to make some
money on those text you
used this semester?
Something more than the
meazly half the original
price that you would get
from the Book Ex?
If you do, don't sell them
right now and wait until the
first week of school for the
Alpha Phi Omega Book
Sale, where you'll get the
chance to set your own
prices on the book without
having to worry about
losing money to a middle
man or paperwork, which is
generally what happens
with the Book Ex.
This year the APO Book
Sale should be a greater
success than any in the past;
n,
tV
Trouble With Exams Is...
Good luck studying for exams.
You'll need it,' especially if all your
exams fall at the first of the exam
period or if your instructors insist
on giving tests the last week of
classes. Maybe one of these days
someone will realize the crying
(Bar ifra
Oaie uibsen, Managing Editor
Rebel Good,, News Editor
Harvey Elliott, Features Editor
Owen Davis, Sports Editor
Stott Goodfellow, Associate Editor.
Kermit Buckner, Jr, Advertising Manager
Johnson
Out
the same in such a situation because
they have all been indoctrinated to
fear such things as the National
Liberation Front, and anyone who
did not fear such would never have
had the chance to become a leader.
We say that we are glad to be rid
of Johnson becuase his foreign and
domestic programs should be a
thing of the past: the country needs
to advance to new levels of action.
Johnson should be credited for
bringing the U.S. to a point where
it is capable of progressing to this
new level. He brought us to this
point first, in foreign affairs, by
showing that our policy of paranoic
fear and containment threaten the
moral and financial fiber of our
nation, and secondly, in domestic
affairs, by making a commitment to
elimate poverty and racial
discrimination.
Unfortunately, in getting rid of
Johnson for Richard Nixon, the
nation, rather than progressing, . is
regressing. Again unfortunately, the
American voter was presented no
chance of voting for someone who
would have tried to push the nation
forward.
Exactly how do we think the
nation should be pushed forward?
First is the matter of foreign affairs.
The U.S. should recognize that it's
policies of the past are obsolete and
rather than trying to settle the
Vietnam war with a negotiating
strategy based on old policy, should
conduct it ,on a new policy of
reasonableness towards liberation
movements in nations.
Domestically, the nation must
move beyond the narrow
commitment made by Johnson to a
broad commitment to give all
persons in the country an equal go
at life, through improved education
in America's ghettos and rural areas
and through increased political
power for the poor, which could
help America become a truly .
pluralistic society.
Lyndon Johnson was a good
President; we find it hard to
appreciate the scars on his stomach
or his barbecue, but we do
appreciate some of the policies that
have been enacted in the five- years
he was President. However, they are
far from being all that America
needs to meet the demands of our
modern complex world.
Book Sale
.vi
I
instead of being held in
Gerrard Hall it will be in the
snack bar of the Carolina
Union, which will make it
as accessible as the Book
Ex.
In addition because there
will be many more books
for sale there will be a
greater opportunity for
students to get the books
they need for next semester
at a reasonable price, rather
than what they have to
spend at the Book Ex.
If this is the year you
want to stop getting rooked
at the Book Ex save those
texts until the first week of
February and sell them at
the APO Book Sale where
you'll get more for them.
I
1
i
need for reading days before finals
in order to give the student with
exams at the start of the week a
chance to compete with the student
whose exams are at the end of the
exam period.
Tom Snook
Calendar Change
The University Calendar Committee
met Thursday to discuss the feasibility of
changing the academic calendar of the
Consolidated University so that exams
would fall before Christmas.
Such a change in the calendar has been
needed for some time as many students
can attest to. The major disadvantage in
having exams after a long vacation is that
it is hard to resume studies and prepare
for exams using the same material which
was studied as far back as late September
or early October.
In other words, it is hard for the
student to get back in the groove after
two weeks of relaxation and study for
exams which count upwards from 25 to
100 of the final grade received in the
course.
The Chapel Hill campus was the last of
the four Consolidated University
campuses to express a desire to change
the academic calendar. This is mentioned
not as a condemnation, but stated as a
fact.
Now that the Calendar Committee has
been formed, it is up to those
representing the Chapel Hill campus to
push for the best possible revision in the
calendar.
Several proposals have been offered as
a substitute for the present calendar. The
discussion Thursday centered around
moving the start of the semester up so
that exams would fall before Christmas.
Other proposals include the
Introduction of a tri-mester system, a
quarter system and a division of the year
so that each semester would last four
months with January being designated as
a month for independent study, seminars,
in short, a total academic environment.
All of these programs have advantages
and disadvantages. I feel that in all cases
except the experimental 4-1-4 proposal,
the disadvantages outweigh the
advantages.
For instance, the tri-mester program
was introduced at the University of
Florida several years ago. Approximately
three years later, the quarter program was
substituted, because of several problems.
The main hang-up with the tri-mester
system was that it tried to crowd a
semester's work into too short a time
span. Students found that three months
was simply not enough time to cover the
material contained in a course.
Compounding the problem was the
fact that books used for the course were
designed for a semester and could not be
applied effectively to a tri-mester
program.
For these reasons, I feel that the
tri-mester program is not the answer to
the change.
The quarter, program is somewhat
better but has the fault of chopping up
,the course too much. Because of the time
limitations, instructors under the quarter
system have to divide their course up into
three segments. Often times, the time is
too short to cover the material planned so
the normal rush is to finish the material
before the term ends is introduced.
Because the material in a quarter
system is chopped up, it would be
difficult to maintain the continuity
needed for a course to be most effective.
The proposal of moving the semester
back has one main disadvantage in that
it would throw off summer schedules for
many activities related to areas outside
the university which draw their members
from the University ranks and rely on an
approximate June 1 to September 1
schedule.
One instance of this is the ROTC
summer training programs which have
sessions from the first of June to the
middle of July and from the middle of
July to the first of September.
This leaves the 4-1-4 proposal which I
March, Protest, The Whole Bit
TT AT H olio
lvioBMizatioii
By RENNIE DAVIS and
PAUL POTTER
(CPS) The war in Vietnam: we are all
tired of hearing it. It has been on our
minds and a part of our lives for too long
now.
Working against the war, talking
against the war, or taking direct action
against the war by refusing to be inducted
or refusing to pay taxes is really two
things at the same time: it is educating
other people by our personal example,
and it is a way to free ourselves from the
personal prison that is inactivity.
The Mobilization came into being and
has continued to exist because there was
a simple, powerful sense of urgency about
the war that was strong enough to bring
into a working coalition working groups
who had never had contact before with
one another but who shared a conviction
that the government's war policies must
be crushed.
The Chicago demonstrations happened
because Americans, many of whom had
been in Vietnam and had experienced the
feel is the best answer to a calendar
reform. The four month semesters allow
ance time to complete the work
scheduled for a course. In fact, the
second semester as it stands now is from
the first of February to the end of May, a
period of four months.
The main disadvantage of this program
is its experimental nature and the
planning of that middle month.
However, I feel
disadvantages are perhaps
disguise as thev would
that those
blessings in
allow the
Letters To The Editor
MLA A
"Great lux and libertas, "
O. Bennett Hardison
speaking for M.L.A.
colleagues declares,
"scholars would think it quite
unhurnanistical
wasting research time on
human affairs. "
Obviously, the above is not a
real quote from Professor Hardison; to be
honest, he simply has a higgledy-piggledy
name. However, I think that the jingle
gets at one of the real issues in the M.L.A.
fracas which is currently being obscured
by secondary discussions about who has
the right to speak for whom about what.
As the discussion the other afternoon
in Bingham Hall made clear, many of the
younger members of the literature
departments feel that the M.L.A.
members whom Dr. Hardison represents
are trying to maintain a false separation
between their professional and
moral-political lives. To these men, (I'm
speaking now of the group and not of
individuals), "professionalism" usually
means maintaining a neutral attitude
toward the moral, political, social, or
religious values in the works of literature
which they teach. This attitude allows
them to deal objectively, even brilliantly,
with what one might call the formal or
aesthetic aspects of the works they
examine.
war itself, refused in large numbers to
give up the objective of ending the war.
- The actions -at Chicago dramatized to
all Americans that the peace movement
will not be silenced even by a peace
riot especially when the Democratic
convention had determined against all
popular opposition to ratify Johnson's
policies once again.
Now we are asking "people to gather in
Washington. We are going to Washington
at a time when the authorities are using
the conference table to deflate anti-war
sentiment while buying time for the
military to "win" on the battlefield.
We are going to the inauguration of a
President who has publicly professed
willingness to use nuclear intimidation in
Vietnam and whose opponents suggest
there may be a drastic extension of the
war.
We are calling for a
counter-inauguration, an inauguration of
the opposition to four more years of
Johnson under a new name. We will begin
Saturday January 18, with a conference
A Must
University the opportunity to exercise its
prerogative in deciding just what type of
study and what type of seminars would
be most effective to their purpose.
The University of North Carolina has
long he'd the reputation of being a
progressive institution. In light of this, an
experimental, modified calendar reform is
a great opportunity to express its
progressiveness.
I would hope that the Chapel Hill
representatives to the University Calendar
Committee would push strongly for the
adoption of the 4-1-4 proposal.
3,
-ft.
e s
Ck
o v e r
Unfortunately, one can't treat a work
of art in this rather abstract manner and
really take it seriously. To give an obvious
example of what I'm getting at, the man
who reads Paradise Lost looking for its
structural and poetic beauties (or worse
yet, its "historical importance") and
doesn't ever grapple with the question of
whether or not Milton has actually
justified "the ways of God to men" is not
taking Milton or his work seriously.
It is here that the question of the
relevancy of literature courses in the
university curriculum enters in. Students
come to the university hoping to listen to
the wise men, the "gurus" if you will, of
our culture; they hope to learn from
them what it means to be a man and to
lead a good life. In other words, the
students come to the professors searching
for human values, searching for a life
style, searching for truth. The shame of
the whole thing is that they are sorely
disappointed in three cases out of four
because the man teaching the course
thinks of himself as a scholar and not as a
guru (which means "teacher").
Now scholars have gone to great pains
to model themselves after the scientists,
who we all know are not, in their
professional lives, concerned with values
but with facts and formal relationships.
In the end, then, the literature student
winds up getting facts and formal
relationships but not the values he came
in search of, simply because his professor
.Recraested
on the Movement some 50 workshops
on G.I. organizing, women's liberation,
Vietnam, law and order under Nixon,
imperialism in Guatemala, underground
media, guerrilla theatre, and so on.
Sunday afternoon we are asking
civilians to join behind G.I.s coming from
all parts of the country in a massive
march to the Capitol to bring home the
troops. Sunday evening, in a giant circus
on the Mall, we celebrate not like the
staid celebration of the social elite, but
with Phil Ochs, the Fugs, Judy Collins,
with the life-style of the Movement.
On Monday, Inaugural Day, we go to
the Nixon coronation, not to celebrate
America's' consensus around Nixon's
vision of law and order. We w ill be at the
Inauguration to remind the government,
with flags and peace pennants, banners,
slogans and chants, that we intend to put
the next President in the same crush of
public pressure that became too much for
Lyndon Johnson, until this country turns
away from the racist and violent policies
of the past.
The Daily Tar Heel is published
by the University of North Carolina
Student Publication's Board, dairy
except Monday, examination
periods and vacations and during
summer periods.
Offices are at the Student Union
Bldg., Univ. of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, N. C 27514.
Telephone numbers: editorial,
sport, news933-1011; business,
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Address: Box 10SO, Chapel Hill,
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Value Question.
thinks that facts, and facts in
chronological arrangements (which he
calls "history of literature"), are his
professional concern. From the student's
point of view, such a course is clearly
irrelevant to his needs.
Until this century, the men called
humanists have always been the teachers
and purveyors of the moral and spiritual
values of our culture. They passed on
these values in their teaching of such
subjects, among others, as grammar,
rhetoric, and poetry. These subjects are
still taught in our literature departments,
and the courses could still be relevant to
the needs of the students if the professors
would only abandon their arid,
pseudo-scientific professionalism, which
the world doesn't want or need, and
commit themselves to taking their
humanistic calling seriously.
Sincerely,
A Graduate Student
Test Demise
By FREDDIE FULLER
Last week my math professor
killed my last test. With a bit of
grotesque humor, he had cut the
age of the test, 27, at the top of the
body. It was a gruesome sight to see
the dried blood which had once
flowed over my test. It appeared as
if the murderer had used a sharp
instrument to commit the ghastly
crime. He had destroyed my own
creation with uncontrollable and
brutal malice. It was like a part of
me had died along with my
butchered test.
Silently, with deep sorrow, I
carried the body back to my room
It was a pitiful sight to see my test,
lying in state on my desk. Then, in
a completely solumn attitude, I
lifted the lifeless being into my
arms. Ever so gently, I placed it in
the coffin I had made ready. With a
tear in my eye, I cremated the
body. In seconds, only a few ashes
remained as the Doors finished
playing the funeral march ("Light
My Fire"). With due respect, the
maid came in and silently took the
remains away. I stood there until
she left. Then, I could fight back
the tears no longer.
But remember, math students,
the murderer is still at large. Be
cautious!