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Cbe Battalion
Page 2 College Station, Texas Tuesday, February 15, 1966
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i
Wanderin'—
By Larry R. Jerden
During a daylong visit to the “Land of the
40 Acres” last week, I had an opportunity to
learn that there is not one, but two universities
occupying that poster-littered campus.
One is the intitution known on this side of
the Brazos as TU, while the other is virtually
unknown anywhere except on the Sip campus,
going by the rather vague name of the “Free
University.”
When I saw an appropriately-painted orange
booth standing in the quad in front of the Texas
bearing the sign “Free University,” I thought at
first someone had figured out a way to beat the
high cost of education once and for all, and from
the dress of the lad standing inside, I decided
it was bom of necessity.
Now whether or not the classes offered were
free from cost was ne’er divulged, for when I
spoke to this advocate of the university within
the university, he immediately began to tell me
just how free these courses are in their concepts.
The man in the booth assured me the courses
were non-political inspired or influenced when I
asked about his “Students for a Democratic So
ciety” pin, but when I examined the course of
ferings later on, I came to doubt this.
The first course in the catalogue is Persian
Language, described as “not . . . for the begin
ner.” This, I believe! Next was a study of
Nietzche, with special applications to today’s life
and society.
Just a glance down the list shows Funda
mentals of Ballet, Scientology, Life Drawing, with
an explanatory note saying that “At the time
of printing, information on this course is lack
ing.”
Also offered is the Science, Philosophy and
Dogmatism of the USSR, basically showing, I
think, that the Ruskies are the good guys cause
they all wear white hats.
Then there is Vietnam Seminar, which first
started me doubting the lack of political in
fluence. and when I saw one called The Move
ment, I knew there was probably more than just
coincidence between the FU and SDS. Sure
enough, course description of The Movement
states “SDS, SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordi-
nationg Committee'), etc. A discussion group cov
ering the basis upon which the movement is
built - alientation, powerlessness, the cold war, the
idealology or non-ideology of the movement,
strategy the future.”
This led me to suspect the FU was some sort
of pacifist training ground. Then came the
clencher: Bob Dylan’s Poetry As Poetry. This
is a study of Dylan’s lyrics “1961 to present,” and
when teamed with two other course, Beginning
Guitar and Continuing Guitar, could well prepare
the student with the necessary tools for earning
his BS in Demonstratism, with a minor in Sit-
inology.
Sunday evening at dear old FU can be spent
pouring over the works of Marx and George
Lukacs in a course called Aesthetics, Alienation
and History. Included in the rather lenghty course
description was the clarification that, “The criteria
of aesthetic evaluation through a social approach
to art will be investigated with reference to the
relation of aesthetics to ethics and religion when
approached historically and socially.”
“Finally,” the leaflet said, “if sufficient in
terest is tangibly shown, there may be offered a
seminar course in some phase of naturalistic,
anthropology-culturology.”
Sound-Off
Editor,
The Battalion:
Concerning your editorial last Thursday on
separation of church and state, I would like to
make a few comments. First of all the church
does govern both the “spiritual” and physical
morals of its members, while the state governs
only the physical morals. The church does this
with the Ten Commandments.
You can trace almost all state laws to these
commandments. So I ask, can there ever be a
separation of church and state? Yes, if state
laws were written by atheists.
You must realize that the lawmakers of the
colonial era were God fearing people and they
were also influenced by the law of their mother
land, Britain. What were these religious in
fluences ?
The purpose of sex as God established it
is to propagate the human race. It is a privilege
of a married couple. It was not established for
anyone’s use anytime he felt like it.
I grant that the state should not control
the sexual acts of married couples. But you’ll
have a hard time convincing a lot of mothers that
it should not control the sexual acts of unmarried
persons. What is to protect the reputation of a
family whose daughter has a <;hild out of wedlock ?
Who is to protect the illegitimate child from feel
ing rejected and unwanted ?
You said “Let man’s religion and conscience
govern his private acts and keep government out
of the bedroom.” What is a man’s private act
one night might be public knowledge nine months
later or even sooner in the divorce courts.
John Prewitt, ’66
* * *
Editor,
The Battalion:
The game room of the Memorial Student
Center daily provides enjoyment, relaxation and
an opportunity for a host of cue wielders to de
velop skill at what has become a nationally pop
ular pasttime—“pool”, or as it is now called,
“pocket billiards.”
There is available, also, one out-and-out bil
liard table which gets much use by devotees of
three cushions and straight rail billiards.
A number of Aggies have developed con
siderable skill at the pocket billiards game, but
when it comes to three cushion billiards, we have
in our midst on Aggie who is to billiards what
(Randy) Matson is to putting the shot.
His name is Leo Montalvo, a math senior,
and he can be seen on many afternoons amazing
the gallery with an exhibition of sheer artistry
in making billiard balls do his bidding.
This young man knows all the nuances of
the game—natural angles, manufactured angles,
soft shots, power shots, delicate shots or bank
shots.
He keeps an accurate record of his scoring
average—just as in bowling—a true measure of
a player’s worth. Recently Leo scored 25 points
of three cushion billiards in 26 innings.
When you consider that Willie Hoppe, one of
the greatest players the game has ever produced,
averaged slightly better than 25 points in 25
innings, you get a real picture of Leo’s skill.
By all means, let us have our football and
basketball heroes, but let us also give an oc
casional hand to Aggies who demostrate excellence
in the less publicized games and sports.
E. D. Bloese
At the Movies
with Lani Presswood
i
The Spy Who Came in From
the Cold presents an unusual
paradox.
Usually, a movie taken from a
novel is faulted because it strays
too far from the book. In this
case, though, the film follows the
novel as close as a turtleneck
sweater and partially for that
very reason fails to come off.
John Le Carre’s smash best
seller (over five million copies
have been sold) creates an atmos
phere of stark, gray bleakness.
Every page echoes of the sordid,
barren elementsw hich make up
the authentic world of interna
tional espionage.
The novel is much more than
just a thriller, however, because
it says something of great sig
nificance about modern society
and its morality. Le Carre’s work
well illustrates the dehumaniza
tion of contemporary man with
such graphic sharpness that you
think about as well as enjoy the
story.
In transferring “The Spy” onto
the screen, the same bleakness
which pervades the book prevails.
This quality of starkness adds to
the realism but become monoton
ously dull after awhile, some
thing the book never does.
Though the movie remains,
physically, highwly faithful to
the printed pages, it somehow
manages to lose the effect of a
pair of individuals being swept
up in a deadly, impersonal, all-
powerful chess game. Le Carre
shows them to be pawns, faceless
tools being used by the unseen
manipulators of the Cold War.
This is shown but not sufficiently
developed in the motion picture.
The strongest point of the film
is Richard Burton’s gutty, mem
orable performance as Alec Lea-
mas. All the movie magazine
tripe printed about Burton and
the general fanfare which sur
rounds his private life has not
obscured the fact that the Welsh
man is a serious actor, and a
first-rate one.
His role as Leamas is a diffi
cult one, particularly for one of
Burton’s charm and natural flam
boyance. Leamas has become de
personalized during his years as
a British intelligence agent and
is a serious, embittered, colorless
figure. He has remained in the
“cold” too long, the harsh realm
of espionage which uses Machia-
velli as its guiding light and
which reserves absolutely no
place for the individual.
Leamas’ motive for finally
leaving the cold is Nancy, an
assistant librarian played skill
fully by Claire Bloom. In the
book she was called Liz but that
obviously wouldn’t do in a role
opposite Burton. Nancy is a
warm, lonely, generous, human
girl who ironically, happens to
be a member of the Communist
party.
Despite some quality dialogue
and Burton’s stirring perform
ance, however, “The Spy Who
Came in From the Cold” fails to
retain the intangible spark which
so illuminated the novel and must
be called one of the season’s
major screen disappointments.
THE BATTALION
Opinions expressed in The Battalion
are those of the student writers only. The
Battalion is a non tax-supported non
profit, self-supporting educational enter
prise edited and operated by students as
a university and community newspaper.
Members of the Student Publications Board are: Joe Buser,
chairman ; Dr. David Bowers, College of Liberal Arts; Dr.
Robert A. Clark, College of Geosciences ; Dr. Frank A. Mc
Donald, College of Science; Dr. J. G. McGuire, College of
Engineering; Dr. Robert S. Titus, College of Veterinary
Medicine; and Dr. A. B. Wooten, College of Agriculture.
The Battalion, a student newspaper at Texas A&M 5s
published in College Station, Texas daily except Saturday,
Sunday, and Monday, and holiday periods, September through
May, and once a week during summer school.
MEMBER
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The Battalion, Room 4, YMCA Building, College Station, Texas.
EDITOR GLENN DROMGOOLE
Associate Editor Larry Jerden
Managing Editor Tommy DeFrank
Sports Editor Gerald Garcia
News Editor Dani Presswood
CADET SLOUCH by Jim Earle
I T
“I realize th’ number 007 has a lot of status for license
plates, laundry marks and after-shave lotion, but as a grade
point ratio—I don’t know!”
LANE’S look out
By Tim Lane
Some things make you wonder.
This past weekend, C. K. Esten,
director of the Aggie Players,
and three members of the Play
ers attended the 17th annual con
vention of the Texas Educational
Theatre Association.
As the meeting progressed, I
was reminded of questions that
had occurred to me before —
very obvious questions that were
made even more pointed by the
situation at this meeting.
The situation was that Mr.
Esten was, in presiding over this
meeting, completing his second
two-year term as president of the
organization, the only man to do
so thus far.
And the questions ? — How is
it that an organization whose
membership includes schools with
drama departments, schools of
drama, schools with large staffs,
schools with students in dozens,
in scores, seeking degrees in thea
ter work, with all the conceivable
resources in educational theater,
has chosen to honor, as it has not
any other man, one who is head
of a theater program that is large
ly extracurricular? How is it
that an institution with no stu
dents majoring in drama, with no
department of drama, negligible
resources, and a teaching staff
of one can furnish the president
of the Texas Educational Theatre
Association once, let alone twice?
And the big question -— If the
statewide respect for Mr. Esten
the Aggie Players, and theater
work at A&M is such that he is
the only man in 17 years to hold
the office of president two conse
cutive terms although A&M’s re
sources for theater work are less
than those at most junior colleges,
not to mention other large uni
versities, what would be the case
if A&M, like every university,
had appropriate resources ? If
A&M’s prestige in the theater
area is so good now with nothing,
relatively speaking, with which
to work except a few people who
love what they are doing, just
how great might that prestige
be if A&M had even a reasonable
fraction of the resources other
universities of comparable size in
Texas have ?
There are, it seems to me,
obvious questions that should be
asked. Perhaps they are so obvi
ous that the people who ought
to be asking them have passed
them by assuming that they have
already been answered.
If so, they have overlooked an
equally obvious fact: a great
university is great because its
administrators know they cannot
take anything for granted.
HIM’S HAIBTICIAN SALON
Ramada Inn
Each Style A Creation
Hair styling- at it’s best by two well trained men’s
hairstylists Jim and Alpha. Alpha recently returned
from Chicago, Philadelphia and New York where she
attended classes conducted by world renown stylists.
Jim is a platform artist attending many hairstyling
shows and clinics.
Phone 846-5541
JUST ARRIVED!
AT THE
WORLD OF BOOKS SHOPPE
Selected Letter of Robert Frost
Edited by Lawrence Thomson
Selected Works of Stephen Vincent Benet
Poetry & Prose
Infant & Child In The Culture of Today
Arnold Gesell, M. D.
And The Source by James A. Michner
207 S. Main 823-8366 Bryan
G. ROLLIE WHITE COLISEUM
An MSC Town Hall Presentation
PEANUTS
By Charles M. Schulz
THIS NEV'ER WOULD HAVE
HAPPENED IF I HADN'T 600FED
UP THAT fSTl/PlD SPELLING 6EE..
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WHEN THE TEACHER SAID FOR
ME TO SPELL “MAZE,"THE FIRST
THINS THAT CAME TO MV MINP
WAS WILLIE MAVS....OH,WELL...
MAVBE SCMEDAV After i m
6R0UJNUF: I'LL MEET WILLIE MAYS,
AND I’LL TELL HIM WHAT HAPPENED,
AND WE'LL m A 6000 LAU6H TOGETHER
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