[unclear: for Ransom]

has come to our attention that we are in [unclear: ession] of your SASRAC sign, and it's [unclear: n'] heavy I can tell you. We feel that at [unclear: e] now also the proud owners of the PSA's [unclear: er], that we are prepared to return the SAS sign subject to certain conditions, all of [unclear: n] must be met on Friday the 3rd August, at the Victoria Club.

[unclear: he] conditions are at follows:—

[unclear: hil] Sowman mutt stand on his head at 2.47 [unclear: and] recite 10 times, 'I Phil Sowman Fuck [unclear: rs',] out loud.

[unclear: aroline] Massof mutt stand up and renounce [unclear: ens] Liberation with at least half-a-dozen letter words throw in, while at the same putting a training bra on at 2.50 p.m.

[unclear: ndrew] Teet mutt drink jugs of beer conti[unclear: y] until he can finish in less than ten se[unclear: s]. This process will start at 2.55 if Caro[unclear: as] managed to get her bra on. No chun[unclear: will] be tolerated, except in public.

[unclear: t] the time when Andrew completes his [unclear: all] executive members present (at least 70% [unclear: mum]) shall stand up, link arms and sing, Executive takes it up the arse, doo, da, [unclear: da].... etc.,' ten times out loud.

[unclear: All] Executive members must be present.

[unclear: Salient] must photograph these events and [unclear: sh] a photo for each one.

[unclear: Bob] Wallace mutt resign if the above con[unclear: ns] aren't fulfilled.

[unclear: Cooking] forward to the Vic Club at the said

[unclear: forms]

[unclear: would] like to ask Andrew Tees why he did [unclear: attend] the Monday 23 July forum. He as [unclear: ident] and also a supporter of the motions [unclear: er] discussion would have been an ideal spea- [unclear: Also] I would like to know why the mo[unclear: of] the motion also declined to attend.

[unclear: t] ais part of their argument for the motions [unclear: forums] can be held to discuss matters which [unclear: be] going to referenda yet they decline to take [unclear: in] any forum prior to the SGM. Those people [unclear: did] attend felt the lack of balance. Not one [unclear: on] in the hall openly supported the motions, were there no supporting speakers? Maybe [unclear: e] are no supporters, maybe the movers don't [unclear: port] the motion but more likley the movers Andrew Tees have something to hide.

Robin Craw claimed, Salient 23 June, that [unclear: EY] didn't want the motion discussed at an [unclear: It] would be more truthful to say they did support the motion but if it was brought to a SGM, then they would discuss it. In fact they set up a forum prior to the SGM to discuss the motions.

Mr Robyn Craw went on to say some very stupid things such as (about SRC) "this seems like democracy but realy there is no way in which the majority can make it's will effective." The way the majority makes it's will effective it by turning up to SRC's and listening, talking then voting. What Robin Craw, Michael Carr-Gregg and Andrew Tees want is to isolate the student from rational informative discussion.

Stephen Ruth.

Who is the Guy ?

I have been reading your correspondence section for some months now, with growing consternation. Social misfits and dissidents are regular contributors, not to mention the resident Moron element — the ravings of people (?) such as P. O'Donoghue, the sex-hungry Carol Addley, C.A.M., and LB. (Intelligence Buried) Flapworth. But worse, far worse, is your tolerance — your encouragement, even — of blasphemers such as the followers, the hedgehog, llama, sheep and like sects.

I would warn these heatherns and rebels against the dangers of attempting to define the Deity. Proceed with extreme caution — you are on the downward path.

A regular Correspondent Writes in

Why ?

Gays in the Holocaust

I would like to take strong exception to your "Holocaust" letter and the blatant discrimination it shows towards gay people. Homosexuals have no choice about their homosexual natures. I most certainly don't choose to be a homosexual, I am one just as straight people, in their being straight, don't have any real choice in the matter of their sexuality.

Ignorance of other oppressed minorities, uncritical belief in stereotypes and other social myths is surely only a more subtle form of racism.

In this country there are just as many gay people as Maoris, and among the Maori people just the same percentage as among the non-Maori who are gay. Now how many of your non-white friends do you know who are gav?

At a minority we get taught to be invisible. How many of you non-white friends have been beaten up for being visibly what they are? Who else gets put down as "queer" etc., fear the lots of their jobs, friends, get chucked out of their churches etc., have their relationships laughed at, feel they have to hide themselves and their lovers, get treated at tick dirty perverts, get lumped together with "communists and the general dissident?!"

Why don't you wake up and realise that discrimination is discrimination what ever form it takes. That any form of socially divisive discrimination is essentially 'racist.'

I would like to make a few points in reply to Robin C Craw's article on Dr Chittick's talk published in Salient, July 9th.

Concern for the 'Boat People'

I realise that in recent weeks our thoughts and efforts have been largely directed towards the education fightback campaign and I do agree that it is something pressing and important that we all should be fighting for. But amongst all this din and commotion we seem to have forgotten a far more pressing problem, in fact, a matter of life and death, and that is for the Vietnamese refugees or 'boat people' to be refilled in developed countries and be given the chance to live, be it decent or not.

I do not like to repeat how distressful and pitiful a plight the 'boat people' are in - it is well described in newspaper, TV and magazines and I suppose most of us even know the details. But I do indeed feel the pain and hurt that these people are feeling now, for I too am a Chinese is are the majority of them. I do feel frustrated about my own inability to do something more constructive to help them at I am an overeas student and so I appeal to you all to give t hand in saving those people.

The refugees do seem very remote from our student world (where we are totally immersed in our studies and activities) and yet we receive daily reports of the drowning, raping, sickness, hunger and deaths of the refugees. How long can we afford to sit back and do nothing about [unclear: t], hoping it will all go away soon? How much longer can we stare at this modern day holocaust and yet make feeble excuses about our own inactivity? Is human life really that cheap as to be better ignored?

New Zealand has recently announced that it would take in 1800 refugees per year, and yet an estimated 1000 refugees drown per day. The monthly outflow of refugees number 65,000 from Vietnam alone. I understand the economic situation New Zealand is in, with all its unemployment etc., and also the difficulty the local people face in adapting to these refugees (due to their racial and cultural differences— but still, the refugees are fellow humans, they are our brothers and sisters, and they too deserve our love and compassion. We can afford to save them, even if not on the religious ground of loving our neighbours as ourselves, but at least on the humanitarian ground of allowing another human being to have the chance to live and to share with them the joy and beauty of just being alive.

The present situation for the refugees is grave indeed, and their 'future', especially those still in the boats, looks horrifying. But if we students can lend a helping hand, we can at least let a few more lives continue living.

V. Wong

Teaching Research Centre Useless ?

Your article re assessment and UTRC surveys prompts me to point out how the UTRC seems to have had no effect and in fact a worsened effect on the INFO 154 courses.

At the end of INFO 153 in June we were asked what the workload was like. Though no feedback on the replies were given to us it was clearly a very heavy course with a lot of time required over a measly 3 credits.

So what do we find at the start of this semester but the workload has increased from a minimum of 2 projects to 3 projects as well as bring much harder.

Requiem for Vic

One of the depressing truths about our dear university is that it is slowly, but surely dying. And just as the ailing and terminally ill man will thrash feebly about on his deathbed, trying vainly to elude the icy hand of death, so to does the university make weak uncoordinated movements against crushing forces. We have increasing finanical hardship to face, overburdening workloads to handle and dwindling job prospects, all combining to squeeze the life from the student.

Yet these pale in comparison to the real killer in our midst — the accountancy students. These are the sickly thin entities with the gaunt, emotionless faces that stare at you over the toilet door while you're having a crap. These are the droning, monotone voices that elbow into the middle of sparkling conversation, killing the wit and imagination like a fresh cowpat that's tipped on a fire. These are the noisy hordes in the library, muttering endlessly a— way about their work that nobody else is interested in, like clockwork slugs they wheeze past you in the corridors, their eyes glazed, their breath offensive, stopping only to leave some foul deposit on the stairs. Their contribution to the university ends there.

And when they leave they move in quiet ranks, without fuss, into, their lowly stations in life, accepting the office drudgery and pettiness without question because they are incapable of thought or understanding.

Surely we should look to relocating these undesirables and their department downward, and two miles east, to Soames bland. There, they can roam with the animals and interbreed, and we will have given the university the kiss of life by being rid of them.

Censor this Letter

I fart in your general direction, you son of a large collection of wave-swept sand. Two of Kevin's letters last year were not printed and now the trend continues. Two of Kyle's letters unpublished, Wayne's latest effort aborted, and now even Kruger fears the ruination of his 100% record of successful publication. We will massage your head with a brick, staple your broomstick knees together and shoot your teddy-bear. Pat Bartlett's got nothing on you, you censoring cocksucker. May you wig get scabies, your dentures explode inwards, your navel ooze putrescense and the warts on your big toe stand up in a public place and shout. "This man rapes chickens!". Cathy's drink is watered down something terrible and the Dominion has been reduced to its component sheets. Cathy also permits me to moan about the parking. There is Still beetroot in the bloody rolls (and therefore on the floor). Goodbye, you eight-armed leftist bubonic excuse for a Stewart Island crane operator. What are you going to do for a face when the orang-utang wants his arse back.

Salient Inky?!

Why does the ink used in your rag come off on my hands so easily. Couldn't you do something about this rather than wasting your time writing bloody stupid editorials.

Come on get your priorities right, students' welfare first. When you've done your job properly you can start playing politics.

If you think I'm niggly you should try washing the fucking stuff off.

Corporal Punishment Criticised

In reference to the article By Chris Conway on corporal punishment (From the Courts; 16.7.79). I feel that Mr Conway has entirely missed the point of the proposed legislation, in his eagerness to debate on the effectiveness of corporal punishment, and it's place in society. What in my opinion, the legislation sets out to do, is to prevent the situation where in adults responsible for the care of children have a carte blanche to hit them as brutally, and as frequently, as they wish to.

Introducing the concept of assault into the area of physical punishment of minors by adults is a vitally important step, because it removes society's almost unspoken acceptance that it is the right of parents and other responsible adults to abuse the children in their care. There exists at this time, in many parts of the world, a situation where physical abuse of children by adults is not taken very seriously by the courts, (ie does not often lead to conviction), simply because it is assumed that parents and other responsible adults have a right to do with children in their care exactly as they choose.

As far as the disciplining of children through physical punishment is concerned, the first relevant point is that there are more effective, and less traumatic ways to guide children towards desirable behaviour; and the second that physical chastisement can easily move from the area of one smack, to brutal, prolonged beatings resulting in abrasions, fractures, lifelong psychological trauma, and very often, death; for which, incidentally the adult is not usually deemed responsible.

It would do Mr Conway well to remember that the child and wife-beaters of our society are usually those who have been brutally beaten in childhood themselves, with no protection under the law: (See Erin Pizzey's "Don't Scream Or The Neighbours Will Hear You"). Whether or not physical punishment "has it's place in any disciplinary system", this place should be at the bottom of the list, as there are more effective, and more humane ways to achieve the stated end — the upbringing of mature, responsible, and emotionally stable adults.

Make 'em pay

I am concerned at the quibbling over overseas student fees, these students are using facilities provided by the New Zealand taxpayer, picking the brains of staff members and in some cases filling roles of restricted schools, e.g. Architecture, Medicine and Pharmacy, why shouldn't they pay for the privilege?

If their government is so senseless it cannot see that in future it requires graduates for the basis of a productive and stable economy [unclear: an] therefore purposely mitigate opportunities [unclear: fo] higher education then it is on their own [unclear: head] and the New Zealand Government should [unclear: no] be crossed with the burden. Foreign Aid? [unclear: t] majority of overseas students are better [unclear: off] nancially than we are and in the present [unclear: eco] mic climate New Zealand is not in any [unclear: positi] to help anybody. We could use a little of [unclear: that] aid here.

It is a-New Zealander's right to have an [unclear: E] cation in New Zealand and it is a privilege [unclear: to] foreigner.

Malaysian Defence

I would like to reply to "The People's [unclear: Vo] If the Voice refers to those fucking [unclear: chatterbox] who frequent the Fourth Floor of the [unclear: library] and "drive all the smart new can, use [unclear: expets] sive calculators", I'd like to clarify that [unclear: they]Not Malaysians but your fellow New [unclear: Zealand] of Chinese origins.

It has One Member, Anyway

Down here on floor zero it occurred to me [unclear: v] should have an "Andy Tees Fan Club".

How about it, any seconders to the motion?

No More Silly Letters

Being but an ordinary mortal I must admit that of late the growing factionalism in the let ter's pages of "Salient" has me dumbfounded and bemused.

Who are these people that write in under absurd pseudonyms to air their petty grievances and then go on to provoke stupid squabbles with other morons who have nothing better to do [unclear: th] write whinging letters to "Salient" purely for [unclear: th] egotistical pleasure of seeing their ravings in [unclear: prit] As a result of these cretin's efforts, the letters [unclear: p] has rapidly become no more than a [unclear: battleground] for several different sets of groups to hurl [unclear: insult] at each other in a never-ending status struggle [unclear: (a] though there is also a rather conspicuous [unclear: power] struggle taking place in the University's [unclear: political] scene which has its close letter-writing [unclear: adherent] on both sides — however we don't need to [unclear: worry] about this as nobody takes it seriously [unclear: anyway.]

But to the point, we, the student body en masse, are bcoming decidedly disenchanted [unclear: with] this gradual monopolisation of the normal [unclear: stu—] cent's section of the paper, not to mention [unclear: the] erosion of its entertainment value through [unclear: what] its perpetrators might think is humour but [unclear: which] nauseates everybody else.

Thus on behalf of all the other students [unclear: who] used to enjoy the free expression and rapier [unclear: wit] of the letter's page, I would like to lodge a [unclear: for—] mal complaint against the institutsonalised and cliched efforts in innocuous hackneys who have gone unnoticed in life and would benefit mankind if they were also to do so in our paper.