The daily collegian. (University Park, Pa.) 1940-current, October 09, 1968, Image 2

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    Sun Surrender
Is Not Enough
It does not surprise us that Shiou-
Chuan Sun is going out of his way -to
coal student Complaints about his apart
ments.
In the past two weeks, the Univer
sity professor and State College land
lord has been barraged with- criticism
from his apartment dwellers.'
Too expensive, too dirty, too cold,
too old furniture and too many bugs,
the students say. These are common
downtown complaints, which are usual
ly ignored by the landlords.
But the Sun tenants have made
more progress than most, and for the
simple reason that they have organized.
A grievance committee his made good
use of The Daily Collegian and the Free
Speech Movement to publicize its
gripes, and to issue its warning of a
rent strike.
So we are not too shocked to hear
Vincent Franklin, committee chairman,
describe Sun's recent actions.
"We're not definite about a rent
strike," Franklin said yesterday, "be
cause Dr. Sun has been doing every
thing possible to placate the tenants.
He's giving them beds, furniture and
other furnishings where they had none
before. If repair work needs to be done,
he has the tenant taxe care of it and
then he lets us deduct it from our rent.
And what he said about the cockroaches
is true. We call an exterminator and
Dr. Sun pays for it."
But it would be a mistake to re-
Tilt Bag Trilitatan
Published Tuesday through Saturday during the Fall, Winter and Spring Terms, and Thursday during
eke Summer Term, by students of The Pennsylvania State University. Second class postage paid al
State College, Pa. 16801. Circulation: 12,500.
Menhir; Address Box 467, State College, Pa. 16801
Editorial and Business Office Basement of Sackett (North End)
Business offing hours: Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m
PAUL S. LEVINE
Editor
Beard of Editors: Managing Editor, William Epstein; Editorial Editor, Michael Sarrill'; City Editors, Judy
Rife and Gerry Hamilton; Copy Editors, Kathy Litwak and Martha Hera; Sports Editor, Ron Kolb; Assistant
Sports, Editor, Don McKee:, Photography Editor, Pierre _Be['mini; Senior Reporters, Pat GUrosky and
Marge Cohen; Weather Reporter, Elliot Abrams.
board of Managers: Local Advertising Manager, Edward Fromkin; Assistant Advertising Managerr, Leslie
Schmidt and Kathy McCormick; National Advertising Co•Manaoars, Jim Soutar and George Bernger;
Credit Manager, George Gelb; Assistant Credit Managers, Carol Book and Stave Leicht; Classified Adver
tising Manager, Mary Kramer; Public Relations and Promotions Manager, Ron Resnikoff; Circulation
Manager, Buster Judy; Office Manager, Mary Gabler.
PAGE TWO
Two kinds of men
make good CPAs.
1. Guys who like to have a boss.
2. Guys who like to be the boss.
Editorial Opinion
gard Sun's actions as an end to the
housing problem. Token gains brought
about by confrontation in time of pros
sure are often lost in the long run.
Even if all the committee's demands
are fulfilled, which is doubtful, the stu
dents' victory would only be a partial
one.
For the problems at the Sun apart
ments are only a symptom of a deeper
malaise. We have been deluged with
legitimate student complaints about
nearly every apartment complex in
State College.
University Tow er s, Armenara,
Americana, Ambassador, Bluebell, and
Whitehall, among others, are all targets
of student criticism.
Shiou-Chuan Sun is the unfortu
nate victim of student discontent. In
one sense, he resembles Sen. Thomas
Dodd of Connecticut. He is the one
whose ethics have been questioned. But
there are more landlords downtown
(just as there are more senators) who
should be scrutinized.
Therefore, we hope that when stu
dents gain concessions from ,Sun, they
redirect their efforts toward another
trouble spot. It is more difficult to aim -
complaints toward a corporation such as
Federated Home and Mortgage or Uni
co, but it can be just as fruitful.
If students prove that the politics
of confrontation can produce reforms
from one landlord, they should use that
strategy elsewhere. The results might
be surprising.
Successor to The Free Lance. est. 1887
S 3, Years of Editorial Freedom
Mall Subscription Price: 512.00 a year
Cl===l3
Member of The Associated Press
ot.l
WILLIAM FOWLER
Business Manager
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1968
00,
eMslam
•Ce
Letters to the Editor
Complicity__ With the Defense Dept.
TO THE EDITOR: I often pause to reflect after I have passed
through the HUB and been approached by sincere and well
meaning people collecting for any number of charities
dedicated to helping the handicapped and disabled.
DO these students realize that this University is in close
and irrefutable complicity with the Defense Department an
organization dedicated to researching and prancing NEW
ways by which people may be crippled, maimed, and killed,
and to stockpiling a mammoth arsenal to hold the world
polarized by the, imminence of total extermination?..
I assume that I am witing to an "educated community"
and I would like to know why you, of all people, have not taken
steps to rid this University and this country of a self
aggrandizing and Monolithic power elite.
Are you satisfied with the current balance of power, or
would you see more relevance in a society which allocated
millions for the research of human problems, and relegated
those men bent on the destruction of their fellows to seek out
paltry contributions in the HUB?
D. L. Kirkpatrick '7l
, Locked in an Ivory Soap Tower
TO THE EDITOR: I just read Mr. Puttaiah's letter of Oct. 4
about off campus housing problems of State College. I would
like to thank him for reviving the 49-day-a-month issue that
was brought up in my letter of Sept. 24.
For those who just tuned in on this, the 49-day-a-month
issue simply means the overcharging by some landlords for
your fictitious occupancy of their apartments. As it was my.
prediction, your paper did generate some momentum in the
direction of solving our off campus housing problems.
" Issues of high rents and 'apartment clean up are already
red hot. It is encouraging to just see how many students have
taken an active part in this to find a sensible way out of the
dilemma. The last word, then, is that Penn State students are
NOT apathetic.
There is another point worth mentioning here. It is about
the way you report these things. Almost everyday that I read
your paper, there it is right in the front page, a professor
landlord arguing and maintaining that he did clean up his
apartments. On the other hand somehow, 90 per cent of his
student-tenants or just tenants manage o point out that the
picure is not all that rosy.
Well, this leaves us with some guesswork as to who is
right and who is wrong. Guess for yourself. It should work.
However, my main point is the difficulty in my mind to asso
ciate Mr. Clean's image with that of a suave university pro
fessor dressed up in his academic regalia sitting up on his
ivory tower. Can you image the Harvard Crimson or the
Michigan Daily reporting everyday on an argument between
one of their professors and a group of students about Ivory
Soap or Ajax, and that, right in the front page?
It seems to me it'll be better to include other concerned
landlords in the dialogue to make the whole thing more gen
eral. Meanwhile, if possible, less personal attention be given
when it gets down to the Ivory soap details.
If he wants to, a CPA can join almost
any kind of business. Or a large ac
counting firm. Then he'll have a boss.
Or he can start his own practice
and work for himself. Then he'll be
the boss. .
Or he can form a partnership with
other CPAs. That way he'll be one of
the bosses.
You can select courses that will
help you earn your CPA certification
soon after college graduation. Or you
can do graduate work. Ask your fac
ulty advisor about it.
You may wonder if you have the
right temperament. Being able to
work with all kinds of people helps. So
does an ability to analyze and solve
diverse problems. (A CPA's work
these days is seldom routine.) And
you should be the kind of person in
whom people can put their trust and
confidence.
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The Two of Us' Goes;
Doesn't Anybody Care?
A STATEMENT FROM THE COMMITTEE
FOR A HIPPER PENN STATE JAZZ. CLUB
Contrary To All Rumors . . .
JANIS JOPLIN
WILL APPEAR at REC HALL,
OCTOBER 18, at 8:30 P.M.
TO NON-MEMBERS ON MON. - $3.00
Collegian Ads Bring ,Results
8y PAUL '9EYDOR
Collegian Film Critic
The theatre managers downtown are be
ginning to irritate me. Already they've begun
that sickening and unofficial policy of keep
ing movies of extraordinary merit for brief
tenures or of importing such movies at
inopportune times, like .at the end of a term,
or during final-
exam peßods.
I had oril
nally intended
d e n v o t e . todal
column to "'V
Two of Us." A
yet, many rea'
era might que
tion the poi?
since the inovJ
left town yestL
day, after bare)
a week. Nobot
seemed to etc
that it's one
the fihest mov
of the year, j
11110111i2E!
Term nobo
seemed to care
when two of the best films of last year, "In
Cold Blood" and Bergman's "Persona," a
masterpiece, were smuggled in, respectively,
during the last week of classes and the final
exam period.
It's as if the managers were ashamed of
presenting good films. "Persona" especially
got the shaft: The Daily Collegian wasn't
even around to carry the ads. "The Stranger,"
another outstanding movie, was accorded a
Sunday through Thursday visit and was then
kicked out. to make room for, if you can
imagine, "Here We Go Round the Mulberry
Bush." "Will Penny" galloped into the
Cinema I for a few days and was soon rustled
off without even a hitch at the Cinema 11.
What replaced "The Two of Us" at the
State? Walt Disney's "The Parent Trap."' If
it were something new, or something that we
might want to see, like "Belle de Jour" 'or
"Zita," it might not be so bad, but "The
Parent Trap" . . . ! This is crass and crude;
worse, it's unfair and insulting.
What Can We Do?
What to do about the situation? Better
to ask first, why do anything at all? For
Staters, movies are the only continuous form
of professional entertainment, of art, in this
desert. This being so, the theatre managers
hold a monopoly on one of the few things
to DO in this town other than drinking or
partying.
To return to the first question, frankly, I
haven't an answer. Much of the blame rests
squarely on'the students. It is doubtful that the
majority care enough for good films to demand
more of them; or, at least, to insist that the
few decent ones stay longer. In a typically
vicious cycle, because most students don't see
the better movies, they have precious - little
basis for discrimination anyway. (Think of it:
"The Stranger" stays for five days; "Guess
Who's Coming to Dinner" for almost five
weeks!)
Most Do Nothing
Of those who recognize good films, few, I
suspect care enough to say something to the
managers; fewer to drop a note; fewer still to'
do anything at all. (A boycott would be imprac
tical and stupid: one, it can't even be arranged
and sustained in behalf of a student bookstore;
two, We would be screwing ourselves in order
to screw them.)
It would, I realize, be naive of me to expect
the managers to forget about profits every now
and then, in deference to the real film-lovers of
this town, to give them a chance to see the bet
ter movies when they come, even to study
them, That would have too much to do with re
sponsibility (which only students, not business-
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
TO MEMBERS ONLY - $2.00
Ground Floorof the HUB
men, are supposed to have). It would be too
much to expect even if it were pointed out that
any losses would be made up immediately with
films like "Funny Girl" which everybody in the
whole-wide-world sees. (Note: "The Sound of
Music" played here at the Nittany, where, if
any of the profits were poured into upkeep, the
results aren't apparent:)
Twelvetrees Displays Integrity
Little, rinky-dink, hole-in-the-wall
Twelvetrees Cinema is the only theatre in town
'that displays what we might call integrity. God
knows how the place manages to keep going,
but I'm grateful it does. And - I apologize if it
seems contradictory of me, then, to complain
that Twelvetrees, too, is guilty of rushing mo
vies out of town too soon after they begin their
run. That's why I get to review So few of them:
I hardly get in to see a film there, write
something approaching a thoughtful and
organized critique, before it's gone and some
thing else has replaced it.
Anyway, I strongly advise avoiding '"The
Parent Trap," not just on principle but also
because it's a plain, aodawful, dumb movie.
Anybody who pays to see this trash is a fool;
anybody who likes it is an ass with no taste
whatsoever.
About "The Two of Us," then, whoever
cares to listen (maybe it will return to
Twelvetrees soon). If movies can be friendly,
"The Two of Us" is the friendliest movie of the
year. The setting is World War 11, France; a
Jewish family sends a young son to live with a
peasant family in the country so he will be safe
from the Nazi's; the old man of the family is
anti-semitic, but doesn't know the boy is
Jewish; the two of them develop a touching
grandfather-grandson relationship.
Real Poetry
What could have been a dreary message
movie is, instead, a work of real poetry. flowing
, delicate, charming, fragrant, pregnant with
sentiment but treading' skillfully that
treacherous line between sentiment and sen
timentality, recalling the best moments of
Truffaut's films.
The director, Claude Berri, achieves that
almost impossible of tasks: he inspires sympa
thy for a bigoted person. At the end, the old
man doesn't overcome his prejudice, ack
nowledge that Jews are okay, and go off
into the sunset a better man, the music
swelling up into a triumphant coda. Life, as
Berri seems to know, isn't that simple. The
closest the old man can come is when he turns
to the boy and says, "Well, the Jews, they're no
worse than the rest of them."
The movie is peculiarly American in its
presentation of the old man and his attitudes.
When he announces he has nothing against the
Jews, that he just wants France for the
French, he's not unlike my roommate's father
griping about the infiltration of "foreigners,"
forgetting, of course, that he comes from the
same stock.
When the old man lists all the standard
characteristics of Jews, calls them money
hungry but lazy, he is like my father voicing
similar complaints about the Negroes. And
when, after his dog dies, the old man laments
that his time is up, the life of which he was a
part is no longer, he is like the older generation
of this country, unable to free themselves from
an older order, from the way things were; sad,
because they're too old to change, tragic, be
cause they can't understand that some change
is for the better.
The love Berri makes us feel for the old
man is like the love we feel for our parents and
relatives, however much we may reject their
views. The goodness of "The Two of Us" is that
it helps us. for awhile,-to understand the reason
for their views. Moreover, because of that, it
reveals how often we ourselves are guilty of
similar generalizations or gross dismissals be
cause we do not or cannot disengage ourselves
from our environment. And that, after all, is
the beginning of tolerance.
WITH
Like Many Americans