Stink Respectfully Yours

Sir—Your newspaper stinks! Any publication that prints the sort of shit that I have been sending in to Grapevine is unworthy of the paper on which it is printed. I suggest that the paper be cut into a suitable size and distributed free to all student flats and hostels. The would constitute a far more worthy end for the unlucky paper on which you publish the crap you present us with. It would also be a means of getting value for the $1 you get out of our Students Assn. every year.

oft wilt he lead

Brother William,

As 'tis written,

"Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth".

Midst a flurried squawking about his right wing Brother James Mitchell, sole defender of the Faith, and upholder of the True Doctrines, smitten tho he may be by the demons of Ego and Envy (may he be forgiven), has, of his own accord, emerged from behind the glossy facade of the Salient office, forsaking that cauldron of corruption, rapscallionry and sordid ambition, abandoning it to those false prophets, Messrs Logan, Grapevine and Gager.

While Biggs is being had, Wheeler is sullying, the National Party fledglings are chirping about Fat Norm's worms, and the S.C.M. is permited gratefully to express their profound views about student power, the Antichrist Salient sect neglects to publish abroad the Word; while "the hungry sheep look up and are not fed, but inwardly rot and foul contagion spread". As Brother White was heard to exclaim, "Baa".

O, woe!

But, praise the Lord!, a lamp to light our paths has glimmered, the voice of him whose meat is locusts and honey has sounded — "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight". Yea, surrounded by his cherub train, the constabulary, G. D. Toft (virtuous writer of the epistle "Search for God") has come to lead the flock. Toft for religious editor!

No more with impunity shall the friendly Pharisee Daniel proclaim against the rabble in our midst, the scruffy no-hopers who abuse their university privilege; nor shall pagan Poulton be suffered to throw us to the lions for their evening meal. No more shall Kelly inveigh against the wogs and coons, nor Kedgely mouth dangerous platitudes on art, nor List destroy the Buggers, not Hales speak tongues. Rejoice, for the Kingdom is at, hand. Apathy will be slaughtered, the omnipotent wroth will descend upon the Establishment, the price of wool will everlastingly increase, the Communists will all perish in the self-consuming — of Godless war, never again will Dennis be passed, Fritz shall be to the fiery cauldrons where meat-balls boil.

May we forever heap coals of fire on out brothers' heads! May I at last my name in print, like him, who shall be raised to the left hand of the Lord, to judge both the quick and the dead!

Speaking as a mother of seven, I should know.

Protest

Sir—I congratulate you on printing Professor I. D. I Campbell's article on student demonstrations and political involvement This is something that is important to all students and Prof. Campbell has obviously thought deeply about the subject with an aim to be much more than flippant or controversial which most political feature writers for Salient, concerned with things that are unimportant and dubiously motivated have not. His views are worth respect, because of this.

Yet however much I admire Prof. Campbell for thinking seriously about student affairs and even more for bothering to see them printed in Salient, I cannot admire his inability, caught as he is between sympathy for the student protester's cause and the ideals of the liberal academic to say anything straightforwardly or with enthusiasm.

In this he represents a class; the class of the liberal-minded parents of today's students whose beliefs in socialism, nationalism and pacifism have become ambivalent with personal success. Once they were students who sent their untried idealistic moral support ten thousand miles, from this green and pleasant land to the Spanish battle-lines or to the Oxford debating hall where it was resolved that England and the King would remain undefended. They are now professors, doctors, lawyers, scientists or businessmen who may still donate to Amnesty International or read the New Statesman but who with their wives, children, jobs and social position can only act so that the status quo is not upset and will only advise others to do the same.

Faced, with Negro riots in America or with the violence of the anti-Vietnam demonstrators, their answer is a comforting generalisation, a full page ad. and a march to parliament.

Prof. Campbell says "I have advocated involvement over a wide range but with great restraint in method". Fine sure, but what are you to do if you are a Negro in the US, feeling the heat coming in, seeing the self-satisfied cop-cars cruising about your Negro streets, facing workless weeks, condescension, hate, embarrassment and evasive unwillingness to do anything about anything, or if you are an American boy faced with call-up to a war you believe to be stupid, immoral and hypocritical, or even if you are a New Zealand citizen faced with a similar government and a similar alternative government who are inefficient to boot?

What are you to do? Sign another petition? Write a satirical poem? Organise another committee? March again? No, the answer can oly lie in action outside the up-till-now accepted code of protesting behaviour, indeed outside the sort of society that bred the problems we have to deal with.

I am etc.,

Elections

Sir—Well, the rat race has begun. Elections for positions on Exec. are to be held this week and no doubt we can expect performances not unlike those of the past. The candidates run true to form: a good percentage of exhibitionists who can't afford to miss the publicity, the usual annually blossoming professional students, and only two or three "university-minded" individuals with something genuine to offer.

To them all I plead. Spare us from the usual guff sheet with the better-than-real-life mug-shot and the carefully enumerated platform policies (not more than four if conservative—no less than five if radical), which we all know are forgotten the moment that results are announced. Spare us from the second-hand acting in public, at meetings, and especially at forum; and from the campaign policy of wandering end-lessly around campus, dressed in Sunday best, on the pretence that you're looking for someone—if only you could remember who. And most of all, spare us from the almosl inevitable petty-politics once elected: the earth-shattering statements about world and local affairs, the petty side-swiping through Salient and its staff, and the childish behaviour at Exec. meetings.

Lift the name "university student" out of the mud and spare both the public and the rest of us from the exhibitionism that has over-shadowed the good work done by only a handful in the past. Responsibility must necessarily be engendered by those at the top. I am etc.,

Apathy charged

Sir—You have heard it talked about many times over the past few months, by students themselves in private discussions, by the general public when they pass comment on the University and its activities, even by those few whom you mentioned in your last issue of Salient, who actually get round to writing an article for Salient—What is it? Well it has been termed 'Student Apathy' and not without good reason.

It would seem that when it comes to students showing their hand, whether it be in demonstrations, protest marches or even the annual capping celebrations; they all follow like a flock of sheep after those few who, because of their seemingly witty behaviour, appear to stand out as characters possessing some glorified power of imagination. These are the characters who are giving the University and its management a poor image not only to outsiders but to the mass of students within its campus, as signified by the recent bid to introduce more responsible student power into the administration of this University.

Why must we put up with this ridiculous practice of reversing our values and better judgements for the sake of providing humorous incidents for the entertainment of others? The kind of reversal I'm talking about is this negative attitude advocated by the 'Gerard Guthries' and 'Paul Kelly's of this University.

Certainly, we want freedom to express our opinions and there is no reader of Salient who will say that we haven't got the right to exercise this because it is fundamental to each and every one of us. But when a group of students, forming a minority amongst a roll of some 5000, deliberately set themselves up as antagonists and infringe upon others rights (I refer to those characterised by their stark paralogisms in Salient) then it is time for the potential of each individual student to be brought to the fore and made manifest in the face of this blatant disregard for human dignity.

Let us hear no more about student apathy in this University but rather let us progressively hear more about student affability and then and only then ('thenn' in the language of the mathematicians) can we look forward to better interrelationships and social conditions on the campus.