Eighty-four years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Lobotomy via cathode ray Friday, November 15, 1974 News Phone: 764-0552 , 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mi. 48104 Ford: Bombing for oil? MAYBE JACK Anderson is wrong. Could the president really be considering an attack on an oil pro- ducing nation to force it to lower prices? Too many people have been telling Jerry that he should take drastic measures. Since wage and price controls are out of the question, perhaps: dropping bombs is the only other drastic thing he knows how to do. if it happens, this would not be a bad time to change one's citizenship to a country with a slightly more subdued foreign policy. Those who choose to remain Americans can ex- pect. the worst possible treatment froth.the rest .of the world. Of course, good friends like the government of the YTnion of South Africa will never des'-et the ranks but the starving millions that populate the rest of the glob4 will eye our food reserves hun- grily A ND WHEN THE U. S. it attacked with nuclear weapons from, say, India, what will be our response? Will we destroy their major popula- tion centers immediately? Will the Soviet Union choose to help an almost defenseless country that brazenly at- tacked the despicable Yanks? Will enraged invaders and atomic bombs make distinctions between the hated leaders and the good.people of Amer- ica? Please Jerry, don't do something foolish without someone's permission. Pardoning Nixon was dumb, WIN buttons are dumb, campaigning for losers was dumb. But attacking a country to save us money is really dumb, and if you do it we can never pardon you no matter how many in- spiring speeches you make. What can a concerned student do? The traditional speeches, marches and burnings in effigy would be nice touches but very drastic measures also may be necessary. Remember, be forceful but try not to hurt any- one while you riot, burn and pillage the campus. Bad press will turn mid- dle America away from our simple message: Jerry Is Trying To Kill Us. A LL EFFORTS must now be made to convince Washington to resist the foolishness to which they are naturally inclined. Once the attack on oil has begun, however, we might as well go home and alter our con- sciousnesses 'cause, without a doubt, a hard rain is gonna fall. -WAYNE JOHNSON By RON LANGDON T IS COMMON practice for liberals to bemoan television and television programming, usually with a little hu- mor and a lot of intellectual elitism. I would like to avoid that. I will say outright, and without cool detachment, that I think television is a great sickness and a threat to our jsociety and whatever culture we have left here in 1974. (By culture, I do not mean ballet and opera, but the anthro- pological outline of society: the ability to bake bread, to dream, to exchange ideas.) Like nineteenth century American Ind- ians confronting whiskey or middle-class teenagers with heroin and downers, our society has come upon a pacifier that it has never experienced before and does not know how to control. It controls us. At my house, it seems that when peo- ple come home and they are not going to sleep, the TV automatically comes on. I realize this is not unusual. Lying in bed late one night, listening to the sound of the tube coming up from downstairs, I thought about how this was going on all across America, night after night. I got a very spooky sensation. TV AND I are about the same age. Sometime around 20 years ago, we both came into being. My generation is the first to have travelled through the mys- teries of early childhood irradiated by that soft . blue glow - now red and green also. I wondered about the effect. Perhaps some imprinting process has taken place, as is observed in ducklings. A small town school board in Michi- gan has just recently decided to mount colour video tape cassette TV machines in their dozen or so school buses at $2,- 500 apiece. The school board is appar- ently concerned that the kids might be comletely dumbfounded, having to think for themselves and find their own amuse- ment for the half hour it takes to get to school. A woman at work tells me that when she makes her seven year old son stay at home as a punishment, she has to remove the dial from the TV, or else it would not be any punishment at all. WAS I LIKE THAT, I wondered? I don't think so. I remember some of my early theories as to what the thing was. Not totally a modern child, I re- earded it as still a miracle. I felt sorry for those poor people who were trapped inside the thing. It seemed like an awful rough way to make a living; though not quite so bad as for the people who had to be so-ashed into phonograph records. But in addition, I distinctly remember feeling bored and restless whenever I watched TV for more than an hour or so. Perhaps I was abnormal. Recently, I rode by a huge crowd and a traffic jam outside town. The occasion: "Ronald MacDonald" was appearing at a local hamburger joint. WHEN YOU REALIZE that people ac- tually go out of their way to see "Ron- ald MacDonald,'.' that children get a thrill out of sitting on his lap, that par- ents actually condone or encourage their r N I I 101 Winter: A mixed blessing EDNESDAY NIGHT brought the winter's' first blanket of white to the city,.and with the flakes re-. turned all the ambivalent feelings evoked by .that season here. There's no 'denying that the snow is beautiful. Hanging on the trees and covering the lawns, snow trans- TODAYS STAFF : New rGlen Allerhand, Gordon Atche- on, Dan Biddle, Cindy Hill, Mary 'Kelleher, Cheryl Pilate, Jeff Ristine, David Whiting Editorial Page: Becky Warner, S u e * Wilhelm Arts Page: Chris Kochmanski Photo Technician: 'Ken Fink DAN BIDDLE Editor in Chief JUDY RUSKIN and REBECCA WARNER Managing Editors. LAURA.BERMAN ......... Sunday Editor HOWARD BRICK- ...............Sunday Editor MARNIE HEYN ...,..........Editoriai Director CINDY HILL ... ..........Executive Editor JEFF DAY'...........9ssistant Managing Editor Ki4NSTH FiNK ...................Arts Editor forms November's drab wasted land- scape into a far more attractive place. For a while, at least, it's fun to make snowmen and engage in harmless battle - snowball fights. Then too, the skiers and the skat- ers will rejoice. Only cold weather and lots of powder give them an opportunity to indulge in their favor- ite modes of recreation. But the season brings discomforts to the city as well. Snow is pretty enough when it's untouched, but as soon as the cars venture out onto the streets and the people take to the sidewalks, the snow turns dirty, and eventually metamorphoses into slush. WHEN THE TEMPERATURE rises, the melting produces puddles, and most people end up losing at the ancient sport of puddle jumping, gaining soggy blue jean cuffs as evi- dence of their failures. When the snow gets heavy, it makes it very difficult to get around town. For those who walk, or for the wealthy with cars, snow presents an obstacle to motion. But of course, there's nothing any- one can do about the weather, as Mark Twain remarked. All one can do is accept it, waterproof one's boots, hunker down and prepare to be in- undated by another winter. -STEPHEN SELBST little one's misguided adoration of that Madison Avenue goon - you have to conclude that Ronal MacDonald is no longer just an advertising slogan; they, the corporate bosses, have succeeded in making him a part of our culture, like it or not. Lately, I've had this idea: Suppose a group of people decided that, as a people and a nation, the TV is destroy- ing us. Supposethey came tosee it as a sort of wicked spell - difficult to break, but yielding rewards after it is finally undone. Then they might reason- ably begin a rather unusual course of ac- tion, unprecedented as a revolutionarv movement. They might form a secret band of guerillas whose sole strategy would be to destroy television sets. A BULLET THROUGH the picture tube or the delicate internal circuitry could easily do the trick. Of course, the band would have to be persistent, and careful not to hurt anybody or unnecces- sarily destroy people's property. They would have to expect capture and legal punishment of some of their number. The public would probably react with a certain- incredulity, and police would no doubt interpret the guerilla action as a crime, rather than a cultural and political act. Some individuals with a particularly strong TV habit (or "de- pendence," if you wish) would react with fear, anxiety, or hysteria. W a 1 t e r Cronkite would report the actions as a new craze, like streaking. If the TV-cidal guerrillas persisted long enough, TV manufacturers might respond by beginning to offer new mod- els, with bullet-proof shields. People would set up their televisions in window- less rooms and triple bolt their doors. Security alarm and dead-bolt lock sales would soar. The people most in need of release from the spell, predictably, would fight the hardest. INDIVIDUALS who did not own TV sets would find themselves under suspic- ion. The government might step up re- search on electronic surveillance equip- ment that can determine who is and who is not watching TV - such equip- ment already exists. Individuals who fell conspicuously short on viewing time could conceivably be rounded up and interrogated relentless- ly - even incarcerated. But still the movement might persist; it might grow. Some individuals who had been freed from the spell long enough might begin to show gratitude. They might even begin to take an in- terest in the real world around them, including their own neighborhood or city, its environment, its government, and its laws. DEMANDS COULD be issued, as chan- nels for compromise: "The television will be allowed to survive but only if it is used as an instrument of communica- tions, not 'entertainment!."' or more pre- cisely, not as a pacifier for grown-ups. The government and the networks would have to decide whether or not to change. Either way, the changes would be fan- tastic. The other day, I was in a grocery store out on Stadium. Theplace was full of cheap psychological gadgetry - a rear screen slide projector dangled from the ceiling flashing kodachromes of food that was for sale, and the appa-. ratus was mounted in a cardboard box painted to caricature a TV set. All around were slogans and signs pro- claiming, "As Seen on TV!" "Advertised on TV!" I THOUGHT, "This store is where we have to come, more or less, to obtain the food that we eat. Thousands of people use this store; it is a part of their life- like their backyard, the street they live on, the place they work. Thousands of people use this store, but a few have .arranged it in this grotesque fashion to serve their own needs: the crass and shallow manipulation of the psyches of the thousands." How did it get this way? I guess it couldn't all be television. But partly it is. People's minds seem to flow along in 60-second intervals now, with ten 10- second station breaks that stumble off into more hair spray, armpit spray, den- ture cream, and then macaroni elbows. "Seen on TV" is an appeal to our in- ternal electronics. * "SEEN ON . TV!" flashes our minds to the little boy run- ning for spaghetti from his very Italian mama: or the vibrator-brush that has a thousand uses. If it was on TV, it must be a legitimate offspring of mass pro- duction. Don't worry - there are three million more, just like it. THE TELEVISION is slowly remaking us in its own image. The other day, I went over to visit a friend. The television was on, with the cons and killers show, "Streets of San Francisco." We tried to talk to each other, but there were these very intense things going on across the screen - ridles and bullets, people confronting e-ch other with anger and authority, and then sex. Peonle were getting killed; bloodlessly, but dying, all the same: Neither of us could get the focus of our attention off the screen, so we just give 'i, and stared silently at the dumb box. Then, about five minutes later, an- otherfriend came in, and without stop- ping to get involved with what was hap- n'ening on the screen, he went over and snapped the thing'off. It was like a spell had been broken. "Thank you," we said, and we all smiled in relief. Now we could talk to each other. Ron Daily's Langdon is a staff writer for The Arts Page. Letters to The 11 -- '1 w+E'E mom CgEp.. .IHE C-MMflM ib REG)AMWE 14E PfUIEMr.- I' .11 Gargoyle To The Daily: NOT ONLY is a University tradition about to die, but the spirit of the campus as well. What I am referring to is the death of the Gargoyle, the campus- humor magazine since 1909. Back in 1968, the Gargoyle was the second largest publica- tion on campus with a circula- tion of between 5,000 and 6,000 copies. At that time, the Gar- goyle had a staff of more than 50 members. 'these were the good old days for the Gargoyle, a time when the magazine could actually call itself a periodical. Four times a year, students could expect to see 44 pages of laughter-in- spiring material, guaranteed to bring joy to the heart. The good days suddenly went sour, however, in 1970. At this time, the Gargoyle fell into a deep coma, only to come out once in 1971 and once in 1973. These two issues could not hide the fact that Gargoyle was suf- fering from a serious illness, though. THE ILLNESS was diagnosed as acute apathy. The only cure for such a disease is therapy. The therapy for acute apathy consists of student activation in the process of writing, drawing and layout work. I was put in charge of administering t h e therapy under the authority of the Board of Student Publica- tion s. In my attempt to save the Gargoyle, I put ads in the Mich- igan Daily. put posters up where the only two members of the staff were me and my room- mate. I put out another deter- mined effort to recruit mem- bers, but it was to no avail. This is my final plea. Gar- goyle holds meetings every. Wednesday at 7:30 in its of- fice, which is located on the second floor of the Student Pub- lications Building. For those of you who don't know where that is, it's at 420 Maynard. IS IT NOT fair to the stu- dents of this University for me to write all 40 pages. If a suf- ficient number of people do not show up at the next meeting, my only choice will be to write it all myself or permanently put the Gargoyle to death. Many people who I have talk- ed to have said something to the effect: "I think it's really great that you've started up the Gargoyle again. I think we real- ly need it around here. I'm sor- ry, but I won't be able to help you with it. Good luck." The hard fact of reality is that we cannot get what we want without working for it. If you want to havea Gargoyle, you have to do something about it. If you can write, we need you. If you can draw, we need you. If you can think up funny ideas, we need you. If you can breathe, we need you. We need every- body. If you can't show up for meet- ings, you can submit your copy anyway. Just drop it off in the Gargoyle office. If you can't do that, at least inform your friends about the Gargoyle. If even that is beyond your cap- to lose in the fight against apa- thy? Is the spirit of this cam- pus to fall victimized by that cruel disease? Please say it isn't so and come to Wednesday's Gargoyle meeting. I realize it isn't easy to put out a publication which is funnier than the Michigan Daily, but with a little efort, it might be fun. -Jerry Nanninga Editor, Gargoyle November 14 Attica To The Daily: Words are weapons, and for the defendants in the Attica trials, public opinion stimulated by the words of the press may make the difference between life and death, or between free- dom and imprisonment. I there- fore want to call attention to the bias in your reporter's supposed- ly objective words in last Fri- dav's paper. Lilly wrote, "In 1971, prisoners rioted at Attica, a New York State maximum se- crity prison. During t h a t disorder several guards and 39 inmates were killed." A more accurate description is: In 1971 prisoners rebelled over b a d living conditions at Attica . . . In retaking the prison, s t a t e trooners killed 39 inmates and several anards. -Leonard Radinsky November 8 SGC To The Daily: THE RECENT rash of belit- tling and unfair articles sur- rounding SGC and its officials cry for rebuttal. Any rational, DlUl1 Everyone knows about the re- cord low turnout of voters, and how SGC has, in the past, been full of corruption and decep- tion, and how most students have lost faith in student gov- ernment as a vehicle for mean- ingful change on the U-M cam- pus. Any prudent observer should be aware of the poten- tial loopholes one could find in the balloting procedure used. THE DAILY did an excellent job of expounding upon the ne- gative aspects of SGC on cam- pus. Granted, these are all sit- uations which do exist on cam- pus, and are noteworthy in a student newspaper. But in the interest of providing students with fair and impartial jour- nalism, what has the Daily done to expose the good and positive gains made by SGC in the past year as well as in the recent election? What has our "stu- dent newspaper" done to pro- mote a more favorable and posi- tive attitude on campus c o n- cerning SGC? To encourageta better turnout of voters, what did the Daily do? There were a few general articlesrurging "students to vote in . . . the election as a gest-re of solidarity and sup- nort for a Council that was at lnst showing some signs of 1"lina itself together". Other th-n this tve of meaningless rhetoric, there was little or no snerific information about the candid,'tes and the parties in- volved in the election, or where thev stood on issues of concern to the students. Or let's consider the Daily's anno'lncement of election dates Nonetheless, the Daily implies that SGC was responsible for not only conducting an honest election but also for making sure there was a strong voter turnout. A WORD should also be said about the recent administra- tion's efforts to "clean up" the affairs of SGC on campus. The president elect spent the major part of his past year in office initiating civil court action, bal- ancing the budget, and generally reorganizing and "doctoring" the affairs. of a "sick"~ council. He did this in spite of a divided and often hostile SGC. Indeed, SGC still has a tre- mendous amount of work to do. But so does the student body. Council cannot hope to continue its strides toward a better government on campus unless the student body, includ- ing the Daily, and the admin- istration see the necessity of working together for one goal of a better atmosphere for all concerned.' THE OBJECT of this com- mentary is not to lay the blame for SGC problems totally on the lap of the Daily; any fool can see that there are many other variable factors contributing to the problems of student govern- ment on this campus. However, the Daily, as a communicative and influential factor on the U--M campus, has failed miser- ably in their coverage of recent SGC affairs. As a concerned and interested stdent, I cannot condone or tolerate the amateur and un- ethical style of journalism which the Daily has exhibited with SGC.