Curbing campus disruption By ANN MUNSTER THE TREMENDOUS amount of construction on campus is causing the greatest disruption of the normal functioning of the Uni- versity in its 151 year history. These subversive forces are erecting formidable obstacles all over campus, which are a far greater im-, pediment to the University's normal activities than any real or metaphorical barricades ever put up by students. The present disturbance greatly surpasses the recent confronta- tion between students protesting in support of the welfare mothers and Sheriff Harvey's counterinsurgency forces, or the draft board sit-in of 1964, and, yes, even the awesome student power movement of 1966, when 1500 "radicals" occupied the lobby of the Administra- tion building during the lunch hour. Actual physical devastation of the campus is widespread in the wakp of tlese disruptive outside agitators, who are rapidly taking over an otherwise tranquil campus and grossly defacing it. THE CAMPUS'S SERENE streets are giving way to their huge superhigh/ways. The willful destruction of private property and the wanton desecration of our forest land which this infiltration is bring- ing about are disastrous. Who knows for what subversive purposes these structures have. been designed? For at the momentv all that is visible in the midst of the vast defoliation of the campus are gigantic bridges which appear to lead nowhere, huge and mys- terious caverns in the earth- whose only conceivable function would be to incarcerate loyalists students-and immense highways, for which there is ono justification except an anticipated influx of more enemy forces. The depopulation of the coun- tryside is proceding steadily. Nor- mal daily commerce has virtuallyt - < ceased. Even the nightly expedi- tions for supplies of thin, white° feminine undergarments have q been sharply curtailed. It is rumored that access to the Hill, the usual source of these delights has been completely blocked and that men have been forced to rely on the outpost at Betsy Barbour, which has never been a very propitious alternative. THE THREAT OF a complete takeover as a result of this vast infiltration of subversives is indeed grave. All tactics for averting it which have been devised to date have proven ineffective. As we see it, for the well-being of the university community as a whole, there remains only one drastic alternative. Merely cutting the allocations of the agitators who are passing themselves off as ad- ministrators and planners is highly unfeasible and likely to have little effect. .Those subversives who are undermining the morale of the student body and generally disrupting the normal functions of the University ought to be thrown in jail until they learn to respect law and order. The reign of anarchy and disruption on campus must end'. "l I my t t gn 43 Seventy-eight years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan unpler authority of Board in Control of Student Publications The land of milk & honey By HOWARD KOHN WAS the oldest of six on a farm where I learned that minding my own business was life's greatest . 42G Maynard St, Ann Arbor, Mich. News Phone: 764-05 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily exp ress the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1968 NIGHT EDITOR: RICHARD WINT virtue. 52 I was often up at six in the morning to hoe the beans before the wilt of midday. I thought about peo- ple, but only in the context of baseball players, poli- ticians and ministers. The niggers pulled into the yard one night during milking time. Their black-bleached truck sputtered ER and the cow I was milking jumped. They were, itinerant niggers selling lightning rods, I'd read in the paper that the sheriff's office had is- sued a warning to be on the lookout for con-men suckering the countryside. They would punch holes in the roof of the barn with their hobnail boots and then forget to hook up the ground wire so the rods wouldn't work anyway. On the seventh day, r' they: TODAY DAWNED as imperturbable and callous as yesterday. Demons still frolic. Hubert, Dick and even George are trying to win our votes by downgrading our idealism. Justice still masquerades as an assembly line. Human values are still institutionalized. And as if following some pre-ordained plan, we still channel our hopes and ambitions so that in the end we have wed ourselves to some, little niche in the un- vanquished system. In many ways this is inevitable. We are, all bastard sons of this culture's own pre- embryonic impersonality. BUT THE DANGER lies in mistaking this pompous impersonality for relevance. The pretence of significance, which we too are often guilty of encouraging 'on these editorial pages, leads us to build illusionary edifices out of our own des- perate urge to change the world-or at least to challenge it rhetorically. But it is important to take at least one day a week to admit to ourselves that buying or not buying California grapes ultimately makes little difference. Take time to admit that were it not for the oppressive hand of the draft, even the war in Vietnam would be tangential to our daily lives. We realize that the mechanics-includ- ing newspapers-of an issue-oriented so- ciety could not function if politicos and academicians did not provide gist for the mill'. And there Is a certain perverse rested utilitarianism in all of us which deludes us in believing that GM price increases are somehow more important than watch- ing the flight of a flock of birds. But behind a door marked "Life and Leisure" we wage our own private battles against an unwieldly and unyielding age. sAway from a nation gone amuk and away from a mammoth and ill-funded university, we think our own personal thoughts. TODAY, IN A radically different format entitled simply "sunday morning," we are trying to come down from the Mt. Olympus of politics and University affairs and to present some rather individual and' anecdotal perspectives on all our lives. We would appreciate your comments in assessing our experiment. If successful, "sunday morning" could become a regular, once a week institution on the editorial page. And if we fail, what the hell? -HOWARD KOHN Associate Editorial Director -WALTER SHAPIRO Associate Editorial Director TRY UP THE ROAD, I said. The old nigger looked old. And the two young nig- gers with him looked just as old. We'll do a nice job, they said, and we ain't et since yesstiday. Damn, shiftless niggers. Got enough trouble trying to squeeze a living out of this ground - what with the neighbor's horses busting into the corn and the government telling you how much wheat to plant - without them trying to take me for a few more bucks. TRY UP THE ROAD, I said. They didn't look like they enjoyed bothering me, but'they kept on doing it. We could pick pickles, they said, or maybe weed beets. The cows were mad and bellering and one of them kicked and sent a pail clanging and milk swimming into a trench reserved for manure. Get the hell out, I said, try up the road. They started up then, jumping like they was sear- ed and getting into the truck with its rusted-out run- ning boards. Scummy niggers, worthless like the green-bleached algae which stagnated in the crick at the end of summer. GOOD RIDDANCE, I said, try up the road. Some months later I hitch-hiked to Florida. I was standing on top of a hill in Georgia where..I could watch the cars coming either way and. duck out of sight if I saw the highway patrol. The nigger pulled a pickup over to the side of 'the road easing it onto the shoulder like a ,iog crawling, out of the sun. He had a stubble of beard and wore Sunday morning A TALE OF WOE They're coming to take my car away By MARTIN HIRSCHMAN I SLEPT LATE the day they came to take my, car away. After dressing hurriedly, I stepped out onto the balcony to check out the weather, only to notice the thiree police officers, two police cars, one tow truck and one mechanic that had come to take my car away -- it being the biggest crime in Ann Arbor since the sit-ins at the Count'y Building. I hastened down to the nearby parking lot in a valiant attempt to stay this conflagra- tion of grease-monkey and urban swine from, its appointed task. "Good morning. This is my car.", "IT'S PARKED ILLEGALLY and you owe $37 in back parking tickets. You can pay the $37, or we will have to tow it away." "Can you take an out of town check?" They couldn't - or wouldn't. "Would you like to come down to the sta- tion and pay? It's you or your car." As I walked away they shouted, "You can come down to the station any time to get the car. The towing will be $12, plus a dollar-a-day storage.", Now, then, the car probably isn't worth $50 in trade-in. But it is lovable. A tan 1961 Chevy, it made it here all the way from New York City at 80 miles- per hour, breking down only when I pushed it up to 90 on return from a journalistic voyage to Lansing. THE MONSTER hasn't been the same since. Nonetheless, it's been excellent for commgting to campus from nmy distant apartpient, and I couldn't see deserting the poor thing now, in its hour of need. So I scraped up $55 and wandered on over to City Hall - center of the "All-American City" and the local constabulary. The lady behind the 6th floor counter glee- fully rung up $37 on her cash register. She gave me a receipt which said "Ann Arbor Park- ing ,Violation Bureau/Judge S. J. Elden/$37." The judge was nowhere in sight. A typical case of blind American cash register justice.' While I was giving the pudgy middle-aged police clerk on the first floor another $16, a plump lady in her late 40's, carrying a ,large purse, walked up and asked him where she could renew her license to carry a concealed weapon. He directed her through the door la- beled "Ann Arbor/The All-American City." The clerk told me to have a seat and wait for an officer who would drive me to The Pond to-get my car. As .the plump lady walked back out of the building I could only wonder, "Who would at- tack her?" FINALLY, I got to ride - unhandcuffed - in the front seat of a police car. As I sat down, I appraised my chauffeur. He looked pretty clean for a cop, even affable in a way. The Pond is a virtually deserted lot, a block., off North Main near the edge of town. My car, with it's glowing blue and white "Jim 'Joe' Lewis for Sheriff" sticker lay dormant among hundreds of its compatriots.- The ignition sputtered a few times and then there was only silence as I turned the key re- peatedly. I asked my chauffeur-en-bleu what to do, and he said he'd call' a tow truck.. Unfortunately that required more cash, so I asked him if he could give me a lift back to city hall instead. He grudgingly agreed. "Why do you have that sticker on your car?" he asked as we cruised back. "YOU MEAN the 'Lewis for Sheriff' sticker?" He nodded, "Well, what choice is there?" "Oh come on," he said as we moved back in- to town. Harvey has built up the county force from nothing. It's now the second best in the; state." "Yeah, but what about the way he handles peoplV. I didn't like having a shotgun pointed at me when I was just watching the people get arrested at the welfare sit-in." "I would have done the same thing myself. Do you realize how close this town was to a riot those two days?".. "Do you think using those guns would have prevented a riot? What if one of those officers had just flexed his trigger finger? There'd be five people dead and you'd have a real riot on your hands." "THOSE GUNS couldn't fire, The firing pins weren't down." "Then why have them at all?" "It would only have taken about a second to fire them." ' Fortunately, at this juncture, we had arrived at City Hall. I got out and thanked him. He snorted like a good little barnyard animal and drove off. For those of us with hearts set on converting ---n xn . .i .. 4,,4~n~l~.;s l}YPT f,,\+ .'A .CL coveralls but he looked pretty good because he was riding and I was walking. ,Hop in, he said, and I di- - He was hauling pickled herring in the truck. It smelled oily and vinegary like a restaurant salad gone, bad. But I didn't say anything because riding was a lot cooler and faster than walking. WE PASSED by a chain gang working on the road, filling in potholes with asphalt. I read in the paper that there are no chain gangs tip North, he said that's where I'd like to go someday, up North. Thanks for the ride, I said. Glad to help you out, he said. 6 I was almost near this roadside stand selling hon- er rocks-the outdoor vendor's code name for mel- ons and cantaloupes. I bought one and spooned out the sweet flavor with my.,fingers, I walked back to the highway. In the distance, dark-bleached niggers were bent double pickinghoney rcks. Joys of s iltde.: Ididn'trush, By STEVE ANZALONE SEEING TIS YEAR'S batch of freshman rushees stepping quickly down South University on their way to second appearances at fraternities, I realized that I had made a irreparable mistake by not rushing, I understand now that I have nothing to show for my three years of being "independent." The rewrds for trying to make it on my own have yet to compensate for ieing left out of all the quaddie rush talk about theimerts of a, jock house over some of the other, big name establishments. And mealtimes in apartment living cannot com- pare to the dress-up din1rs at the house. I tend to get tired of 1my roommates' culinary botches and their obscenities at dessert, and they get awfully tired of my Daily hours that invariably lead to meals being late. And so while the brothers are dining graciously, I can, expect only my roommate's bare feet and dirty t-shirts and a sinkful of dishes that have accumulated throughout the day. BUT THE HARDEST thing getting used to is not knowing many people like the fraternity men do. They can walk into the UGLI and exchange greetings with everyone on the first floor. I don't even go there any mor; I got tired of having coffee in the basement by mself. Not only do I know fewer people, but the ones I know are not'as influential as people I could,know if I were a Greek. Eric Chester says hello to me once jin awhile. Yet, it isn't like knowing someone on the central committee for Homecoming.. Eic Chester can't even get me a good seat at the Voice meetings. And the social life. When the fraternity regresent- atives tell the orientation groups that the action is on Washtenaw, they aren't kidding. Why not have a good time on the weekends after a hard, unin- spiring week at the UGLI? SOMEHOW I COULD tae all these disadvantages of "living in the real world" if I could get a sense of direction. It is hard to measure intellectual pro- gress by going from trying to understand academuio reform to failing to come to grips with the-work- ings of the University bureaucracy. Fraternity men can measure their academic di- rection from TG {o pledge formal to the IFC sing to next year's hell week. That is something to hold on to. Why not spend your time serenading the sororities? The completeness of fraternity life would also be very comforting because I would not have to worry about a lot of irrelevant social problems. They don't worry about black people; none ever rush. They don't have to worry about' poverty; one of them will run a bucket drive. They don't have to try to understand the protesters' complaints; they mind their own business.'" I haven't contributed anything worthwhile; to solving any of these.issues; I could just as well go through the comfort of ignoring them. - ULTIMATELY, I WILL leave the University with a less complete exper ence. I'll hear John Aldridge make a-good point or two about Scott Fitzgerald, I may win a scrabble game at the Daily office on Saturday night. But it can't compare with fraternity living. Right now I am worried. When I finally have to leave my position in the student caste, when I grad- uate to middle class America and a new car and a home in the suburbs, wil I have received the neces sary preparation? * pi w I wvas a teenage R'aymond( By DANIEl1 OKRENT A COUPLE OF NIGHTS ago, a friend cele- brated his 20th birthday. Since he was the last of his closest acquaintances to reach this nothing-special plateau, he felt it ap- propriate to celebrate his exodus from teen- ager-dom with a full blow-out farewell. After consultation with many of his friends, John, proceeded to make a complete reversion and have his last teenage party as a typification of the genre. It was back to the ninth grade. Crepe paper was strung from, corner to corner, fritos and Cokes were procured, invitations were addressed to "Dan- ny 0.", "Cindy B." and the like. Each of us was to assume a typical ninth grade role, for day) THOUGH IT WAS all something of a psychotherapy session, we all got a decent kick out of the various roles we played. Pre- sent in the room were the athlete, the pretty hoodlum, the ladies' man, the cheerleader, the school "slut," the Girl With Good Grades. As Raymond, I was the focal point. I was ridiculed, laughed at, gawked at, joked about, generally mistreated. The people present were my closest friends, including among them the girl I'm marrying next summer. But the deeper we got into our roles, and the more they attacked me, the more believable it be- came. To be sure, if someone else hadr come as Raymond, he would have served the same function I had assumed. But it was me-not someone else-that played the role, and it bothered me. . s'e clouds rollby By DIANA ROMANCHUK ONE OF THE things I loved to do when I was little was pick out shapes in the clouds. It was the best way to spend those summer days that were too hdt'for anything else. Or after making angel patterns in the snow. (The clouds stick to the sky) But eventually- we grow up and begin to forget the sky is there. Or rather forget to remember to look up once in a while. There's no time for the things we loved to do when we were little. (Like a floating question why) Sunrises and sunsets get noticed because they're supposed to be beauti- ful. But we get so used to the day-in, day-out ordinary blueness (even in drizzle-ridden Ann Arbor) that few are ever conscious' of the incredible variety of shades that make up that blue. (And they linger there to die) And a flag remains pinpointed against a clear sky . .. a stormy sky a blue sky . . . a grey and white sky as people each day hurry through the Diag. (They don't know where they're going):