Time for a literature

Alan Brunton describes Landfall as a shit of a journal. Can this be due to sour grapes, do you think? I understand that he has tried repeatedly to have his own special brand of crap accepted by Landfall and has had no luck at all, poor bastard! It's no wonder he has a shitty liver about it all!

And those nonentities that he claims need help. Why should they be helped? If they are any good at all, someone will publish them. If they're not, it doesn't matter anyway.

May I suggest that Brunton add to his list of things we can do without, his own pathetic non-verse and that of his fellow non-poets.

Exclusion procedures

I suppose in retrospect, your last front page and editorial on the exclusion of unsatisfactory students were funny. I had thought, however, that Salient would be interested in my attempt to repair some of the distortions and omissions, and in the rationale for my (surely remarkable) claims that there was a genuine and extremely important grievance, that I gave students all the information I was (in the circumstances) able to in the matter, that in resolving it we used means appropriate to the situation, and that a satisfactory result was achieved.

So recently I told you I wanted to submit an article.

"What on?" you asked.

"A reply to your tripe on the exclusion affair," says I.

"You can submit a letter."

"Brr," says I.

"And you should limit it to 250 words. Is that O.K.?"

"No," says I.

"Well I'm not going to have anyone outside Salient dictating its editorial policy. You could always issue a broadsheet."

It is perhaps wise when launching a less than honest attack on a public statement, to refrain from printing that Statement But is not even wisdom taken too far when it limits the reply to one tenth the length of the attack?

Who am I, however, to question your wisdom?—though if your wisdom be granted, possibly a re-reading of your editorial will show that wisdom has little to do with logic. The 'news' section, however, was a masterpiece.

Who else but you could have written such a clear (if misleading) account of the regulations and procedures regarding the exclusion of unsatisfactory students, in view of the obvious and admitted confusion in this matter of academics, administrators and lawyers at the University Council?

Who else but you, Sir, could have failed to notice the fact that letters had gone out advising students of the result of appeals before the Committee of Council had finally determined the appeals?

Who else but you, Sir, would have been able to give such profound meaning to meaningless, misleading and incomplete figures by simply repeating them three times like a magic spell?

Who else but you could criticise a man for being unfair to the bureaucracy and also for not breaking its ethic of secrecy?

(Editor's Note: 376 words. Tsk. Tsk.)

Rhodesia

The Security Council's resolution to cut all relations with Rhodesia, which came in force on 19 March, should be a reminder to the pro-Smith regime that the Rhodesian situation is quite different from what they pretend it to be.

Thus with only Spain abstaining, the 15-nation body ordered UN members to immediately sever all diplomatic, consular, trade, military and other relations with Salisbury.

I wonder if anyone of us knows Rhodesian affairs more than the Security Council—the body which believes in majority rule and equal opportunity for both inculcation and fair distribution of the nation's income among its citizens. I hope the New Zealand Rhodesian Society will reconsider its stand with the prevailing situation in Rhodesia.

SRC Apathy

I wish to express grave concern at the apparent lack of interest shown by the majority of students towards the SRC and especially towards the filling of positions on sub-committees of the SRC.

It should not have been necessary for Bill Logan to have returned to the SRC to gain a vote of confidence for his actions over exclusion. The students showed too little regard prior to Logan's attack on exclusion. Students reacted in an even less responsible manner when they allowed the SRC to become an airing place for personality clashes. The SRC is a worthwhile experiment which is still on trial. If used responsibly with enough student participation it could prove unique in student power.

My second concern, for the sub-committees, is based again on the lack of students standing for positions. It should not be necessary for Bill Logan to have to go around asking people to stand for positions on committees, as he had to on the night that nominations closed for Publications Board. At that time only two people had expressed their wish to stand. It is to his credit that seven people stood at the time of election. This was for a committee where vital student interests are at stake. Students and workers unite, participate in SRC, don't be led like lambs, it is only too easy for a strong group or club to go along to SRC and pass a motion dissolving SRC.

P.S. Simon Arnold is a foul-mouthed Forum Controller.

Praise?

Congratulations on your last editorial "We were misled." Although the grammar was only a little better than we have come to expect, your use of that original concept—a credible idea reasonably expressed and adequately supported—is something that will be new to editorial-reading buffs on this campus.

I can only hope that future editorials will demonstrate that this effort was more than a mere cerebral shot in the dark.