New Stargazing Center Opened for Student Use
USG Receives Kent Report
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By Jim Leisentritt
On Wednesday, Nov. 4, the Undergraduate Student Government was presented with the report of the Kent State Investigating Committee, which was established at the special meeting of the USG on Oct. 22. The 18 recommendations of the committee were voted on in a series of motions.
The USG passed resolutions to obtain copies of the Report of the Presidential Commission on Campus Unrest, the FBI Report on the activities at Kent State, and the Ohio Grand Jury Report. A motion to ensure the procurement of all subsequent official reports on the Kent State incident was defeated.
By vote of the Government members, a letter will be sent to the Governor of Ohio to condemn the use of loaded weapons by National Guardsmen on the Kent campus, and to condemn the issuing of M-16 rifles to the
Ohio National Guard to replace the M-l rifles which have been used in riot control. Another letter, to the commanding officer of the Ohio National Guard, condemns him for the policy of issuing loaded weapons on college campuses. However, sections of this letter mentioning the Guards' lack of training and responsibility at Kent State were deleted in a separate USG action. A third letter, to the Ohio Attorney General, stating protest of the Grand Jury's disregard of the FBI Report and the Scranton Commission Report, was defeated.
In three other actions on the Kent State issue, the USG defeated a motion stating that Kent State could not be blamed on any single group of persons, but on the Cambodian invasion action; passed a motion against any form of violence on college campuses; and passed a motion granting the committee $50 for
Peru: A Buck Goes a Long Way
By Andrew Ginder
Interim offers a wide scope of possible projects especially in the area of independent study. Two students with a novel project are John Bo-dette, a junior from Detroit, Mich., and Gerry Kuelbs, a junior from Franklin, Minn. They intend to hitch-hike to Peru. To make it more interesting they will attempt to accomplish this feat with the financial support of only one dollar each.
Last Interim, John and another student completed a similar trip to California. John felt it was only natural to attempt an even more difficult journey this year. His roommate Gerry was swept up with enthusiasm for the idea, so the two worked through Mr. William Van Cleve and Fr. David McDarby for clearance of their independent study in which the academic justification will be a creative writing project.
When asked why they decided on Peru, John stated that a Catholic Brother who had previously taught him in high school was now working there in a mission. Also, the attraction of a warm climate and new culture lured them to Peru.
Their tentative plan calls for them to hopefully exit the United States in three days, Mexico in a week, and Central America in another week. They realize this timetable is possible only if they are to avoid or at least quickly surmount all problems. Some of the problems they anticipate running into are bad weather, hunger, poor drivers, banditos, and hopefully lusty women. The main problem, though, will be getting around the different laws of the countries and states which discourage hitch-hiking. John and Gerry are counting on the
people they meet to inform them of the places to avoid, although they thought it might be interesting to spend two weeks or so in a Mexican jail.
John and Gerry felt they could have done the whole tourist bit with plenty of money and a car, but this would have been defeating their purpose. They want to know the people and carrying only one dollar each on this trip of thousands of miles means they will have to rely on those people for sustenance.
They intend playing the situations that arise entirely by ear. John and Gerry feel it is quite likely, depending on circumstances, that they just might not make it back to St. John's in time for the beginning of the second semester, and wouldn't that be a shame.
duplicating funds.
The committee, extending its investigations, also presented a series of recommendations on the Jackson State incident. The USG passed a motion to obtain all available information on the incident. The body then passed a series of letters, to the Mississippi State Department, condemning them for lack of cooperation in investigating Jackson State; and to the Attorney General of the state, urging him to hold a grand jury investigation. The USG defeated motions to send letters condemning the governor of Mississippi for political opportunism, and the State Police for disregard for lives of students at Jackson State.
The final motion, that this report and subsequent action be made known to the University's Public Information Office and to the press, was passed.
The members of the Kent State Investigating Committee (John Tha-vis, Chuck Rowley, Mike Sullivan and Bob Bertoni) intend to continue investigating. While choosing to reserve comment on the USG's reception of his committee's report, chairman Thavis pointed out that the last paragraph of their report makes it clear that the Committee will continue "to provide information to all students concerning the injustices at Kent State and Jackson State, and to make further recommendations to the USG whenever we feel they are needed."
Relax to the sound of piped-in music. Sit back and gaze at the panorama of the stars. The scene is St. John's new Astronomical Observatory. Many of you have probably already noticed this small, low-set building squatting among the trees in the orchard. It is a new building, built (for the most part) during the summer of 1969. With the finishing touches now completed, this is the first year that the facility is in full operation.
Total cost of the new building and the equipment was about $25,000. The total value of the entire complex, however, greatly exceeds this amount. This is due to the fact that some instruments, such as the sidereal clock, were brought over from the old observatory which was located on the present site of the Prep School.
Fundamentally, the building consists of a preparation room and an observation deck. Both are furnished with "dimmer" lights. These serve a very important function. Father Melchior Freund, head of the Astronomy Department, says that a person needs half an hour of "dark-conditioning time" before he is ready to do work with a telescope. Therefore, the lights in the preparation room are usually kept dimmed so that it doesn't take as long to get dark-conditioned when one goes out on the observation deck.
The preparation room contains work tables and chairs, and dozens of star charts, each showing a different view of the sky. The sidereal (star) clock, which is checked periodically with the National Bureau of Standards, determines which chart is to be used for that particular time. This last-minute preparation before going out to the observation deck is helpful in highlighting "points of interest" in the sky. An added feature of the preparation room is the rear projection screen, which is used to show slides of telescopic photo graphs of some of these celestial-phenomena.
The observation deck houses five telescopes. The largest, a 12.5" reflector with a 6" guidescope, can be used for picture taking as well as for simple observation. There are also two 10" reflectors, an 8" reflector, and a very good 6" refracting telescope. The lenses for the refractor are having some work done on them, but all five telescopes will be in use by the end of the semester. The observation deck has a roof which can be rolled back over the roof of the preparation room in order to give a full view of the sky. Placed back into position, it functions to protect the telescopes from inclement weather.
Father Melchior has cited three main practical purposes for having such a facility on the St. John's campus. First, it functions as a laboratory for the students who are enrolled in the astronomy courses. Secondly, it offers an opportunity for students who are not in these classes to become familiar with the use of the various pieces of astronomical equipment. Finally, it gives undergraduate students a chance to do valuable research work, an opportunity almost non-existent in many of the other sciences.
Students not taking astronomy are invited to stop out sometime to see the operation and maybe even look at some astronomical phenomena. However, you are asked to first call either Father Melchior or Brother Andrew Goltz, the lab assistant, to see if there will be time to show you around, and also to find out whether conditions are good for stargazing.
New Sem Reps
New Student Forum officers and representatives have recently been elected at the St. John's University School of Divinity. The new Forum officers are Robert Flannery, chairman, a second theologian from Lawrence, Kans., and Br. Kenneth Stoner, OSB, a first theologian from St. John's Abbey.
Flannery, who is studying for the diocese of Belleville, 111., served as secretary-treasurer on the Forum last year. He received a B.A. in sociology from St. John's in 1969. Stoner graduated from St. John's in 1968 with a degree in sociology.
Other representatives on the Student Forum are James Darr, first theologian from Belleville, 111.; Larry Droll, second theologian from Towe-na, Tex.; Br. Robert LaFond, OSB, second theologian from St. Benedict's Abbey, Oxford, Mich.; John Prenger, second theologian from California, Mo.; and Joseph Schmitt, first theologian from Algoma, Wis.
Flannery said that a series of eight speakers discussing pastoral and theological issues has already been scheduled for the coming year, along with a teacher-course evaluation and various activities with the Undergraduate Student Government and pre-divinity students on campus.
Flannery said, "The Divinity students are concerned about the progress and future of St. John's, and the Student Forum hopes to become actively involved in its development."
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Gerry and John
By Myron Grebe
The following article received honorable mention in last week's National Catholic Sportswriting-Prognostication Competition, Collegiate Division.
Flash! Jays Torpedo Torpid Toms! The moment of triumph emblazons a thousand impressions on my mind. Sitting on the multi-tiered hillside on the gray November Saturday afternoon as the raucous strains of "Mickey Mouse" accompanied the cavortings of the all-too-vincible Tommy machine, I knew what it meant to be alive.
The ravages of our northern clime had occasioned an earlier kickoff, and those who arrived at the usual hour were dismayed to find the game had not only started, but was already over. But this is not a story, or not the whole story at any rate. For the game is more than the final score, it is a clash between two ways of life.
My emotional involvement with the College of St. Thomas and its mawkish magpies (species Tommie fanaticus) began my freshman year. My roommate, Rocky Leedaright, a square-shooting lantern-jawed specimen of youthful prowess, instructed me in the finer arts of fending for myself. It was he who taught me the niceties of the kicking game, and where to place a steel-toed work shoe to devastate a would-be Tommy. The cuneiform scars on his physiognomy—from the cookie-cutter crests on the class rings he and the other top dogs wore—would dimple mischievously as he related the deeds of arms of the years previous.
Of course, there was never any mayhem to speak of. Even Rocky eventually came to the realization that he was a college student, and out of the big leagues as far as dukedom was concerned. Still, the atmosphere was there, the electric tension, the carnival of hatred projecting the visceral fantasies of the multitude.
What joy in drubbing the militant hedonists from the Great Metropolis, the pretenders to the repository of Catholic education in Minnesota! To outmuscle, out-think, outhustle, outblock, outtackle, outrun, outscore, outwin! It is noble work, but alas, it is never complete. The opponent is stubborn and sinister, contumacious to a fault. There is little likelihood they sill ever petition to be removed from our schedule.
Every battle needs its guiding light. This year's debacle was engineered chiefly by the Lismore Nightingale. Omnipresent, he fanned the camaraderie of the crowd, heaping abuse and piling praise as the situation merited. Whitmanesquely I absorbed it all and found in the savage growl in my throat the answer to the riddle of the humanists: Death to the unbelievers! Put them to the sword! A has Thomas!
Call it what you will. A religious experience, a plenary indulgence from boredom, a purge, a psychological bloodletting, a moment of non-inertia. It may be profane to suggest that an inflated pig's bladder can evoke ecstasy, but were not the greatest books printed on scraped sheepskin, and were not the greatest thoughts contained in men's heads?
