THE MICHIGAN DAILY Sunday, February 3, 1974 ' ,,... dov ., F ebru.. a ry w I 7 'x . ~~ ,. ,, J ins; I =' NOTICE Non-Native Speakers of English All Speakers of English ds a Second Language* Are Invited to Take Part in an . Experimental Test of English Language Proficiency to be Given in RACK- HAM LECTURE HALL AT 7:00 P.M. ON THE 6th OF FEBRUARY. You Will Receive $5.00 for Approx- imately, 1 V2-2 Hours of Your Time, If Interested You Must'Coll and Register at the Following Num- ber: 764-2416 on or before February 6th. *No ELI Students Currently Enrolled in the Intensive English Courses Are Eligible for the Test at This Time. II - ___________ GRADUATE STUDENTS WELCOME! GRAD COFFEE HOUR , WEDNESDAYr 8-10 p.m. West donference1 Room, 4th Floor RACKHAMc DO YOU KNOW ... what the oldest building on campus is?t how many bricks there are in the law quad? who Samuel Trask Dana was? t 1 WHO CARES!! If you'd like to work with new students, sign up to be a fall orientation leader in the UACs Office (Room-2N) in the Michigan Union,r starting January 31. Interviews begin Mondayl February 4 and continue through February 22. The University of Michigan is a nor-discrimi- ri notary, affirmative-action employer. ; s i e ON CITIBANK Behind the smile of your bank president JOY OF SEX? The travels of lsadora Wing: searching for love and freedom CITIBANK: RALPH NAD- ER'S STUDY GROUP REPORT ON FIRST NATIONAL CITY BANK, by David Leinsdorf and Donald Etra. New York: Gross- man Publishers. $10.00. By CHARLES STORCH "N MOST advertisements f o r banks, bankers are shown as smiling and friendly. After reading the latest Ralph Nader Study Group Report, Citibank, you will quickly know why they are smiling and that they are certainly no one's friends. David Leinsdorf and Donald Etra, two of Nader's corral of lawyers, provide a portrait of corporate cunning and- social ir- responsibility that is mind-bog- gling - at least to those not previously weaned on such Nad- er projects as Unsafe at Any Speed, The Company State, and You and Your Pension. Their fo- cus is First National City Bank (FNCB) of New York - Citibank - the second largest bank in America, in terms of assets (a somewhat misleading ranking, since the top bank, California's Bank of America, operates on a state-wide basis while FNCB is restricted to New York City and its surrounding suburbs), but per- haps the front-runner in poor cus-x tomer service and community in- difference. "Because most people b a s e their choice of hank on conven- ent location and because Citi- bank had 25 per cent m o r e branches than its nearest com- petitor," write Leinsdorf a n d Etra, 'slovenly service c o s t s Citibank very little." In terms of a trade-off between the cost of mproving service and the pos- sible business lost by not doing so, FNCB finds it immeasurably more profitable to continue ba- ooning in size and complexity' without caring about service. Poor service for consumers is reflected in the inability of bank personnel themselves to under- tand the host of bank services and finance charges, let alone to explain them. A 1970 study by a consulting firm found less than half of the branch bankers could score "affirmative ratings" on opening checking and savings ac- counts, the two basic retail trans- actions. There were equally dis- turbing scores in the more com- plex checking, loan, and credit card services, with the best per- formance (78 per cent of person- nel) in explaining Citibank's mul- titude of personalized, mod-col- ored checks and Pucci-decorated checkbooks. YET BANK employees show lit- tle shame in flaunting their ignorance since they receive cash 'incentives for selling as many bank services as possible. The re- sult is that consumers using spec- ial checking and credit privileges for which they are not prepared to pay. FNCB'c Checking Plus service provides a good example. The bank's 'brochures play up t h e fact, in typical Madison Avenue style, that overdrawing on a checking account can make dreams come true, but they ex- clude any mention of the 12 per cent interest rate involved. A typical ad reads: "Let's say you have $250 in your check- ing account. You see a once-in-a- lifetime buy. Or you have an emergency. And you want to spend, say, $300. Just write a check. Automatically. With no advance notice at all. Leinsdorf and Etra have more than syntactical objections to this ad. What it doesn't mention is that all borrowings (overdraw- ing is essentially taking out a loan) must be made in multiples of $100. Therefore, to overdraw $50, the user must borrow $100, and thus pay interest on $50 which he or she will never see. The borrower is then effectively saddles with a 24 per cent in- terest rate (12 per cent on $100 rather than on $50). Since loans (along with in- vestments) are the bank's great- est source of profit, bankers en- courage people not only to go in- to debt but to stay there; over 40 per cent of FNCB's retail loans are for refinancing existing debts. Credit cards keep middle Ralph Nader income' money coming in, and haphazard loans, made in viola- tion of the bank's own credit guidelines, keep the poor in tow. Indeed, 35 per cent of Citibank's retail loans are made to those earning under $8,000 and 11 per cent to those under $6,000. The authors are quick to dis- pel any magnanimous motives on the bank's part. "While Citi- bank is to be commended for its willingness to lend money to people of modest means, the fact remains that people earn- ing less than $6,000 a year ac- count for only 11 per cent of Citibank's debtors, but almost 70 per cent of the debtors sued." CITIBANK is New York's larg- est plaintiff, filing over 25,- 000 lawsuits in a two-year per- iod to recover debts. Its methods of serving summonses a n d comolaints, however, are so slip- shod that most debtors never realize their case is coming up in Civil Court. And when a case does come up, a 25 per cent addi- tional charge is tacked on the debt to cover court and attorney fees. New York City also suffers from bank policy. Though units of government are excellent cre- dit risks, FNCB and others as- sign them less favorable credit ratings than some cororations receive. While FNCB gets to hold enormous amonts of city funds in interest-free accounts, it uses this money more for coroorate investments than for rechannel- ing it back into the community in forms of city loans and mor- gage credit. LEINSDORF and Etra give in- numerable, detailed illus- trations of Citibank's failings and iimproprieties. They also provide a long list of recommendations designed to penetrate the secrecy that surrounds the banking indus- try and to increase regulations by the federal government. Like most Nader reports, Citi- bank is unsparing in its criticism of corporate America. It pro- vides another act in Ralph Nad- er's morality play, with bankers stepping forward to take the role of evil incarnate. While tak- ing aim on FNCB, there is no doubt that the whole banking community is the larger target. Ralph Nader writes in t h e book's foreword: "What banks do anddo not do should bematters made interesitng, ,understand- able, pertinent, and engaging of people's efforts as citizens and consumers." Unquestionably, Ci- tibank goes a great way in reach- ing this goal, providing a read- able, referable, consumer prim- er. Chanles ,Sorch is a graduate student in journalism. VALENTINES DAY SALE 20% to 30% off Turkish Arts & Crafts 215 E. LIBERTY 761-5554 c>c o.o FEAR OF FLYING by Erica Jong. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 340 pages, $6.95. By DON KUBIT DOROTHY PARKER once at- tended a Hallowmeen party where some of the guests were bobbing for apples. Never having seen this done before, she asked a companion to explain. "They're ducking for a p p 1 e s," he said. Dorothy immediately replied, "There but for a typographical error is the story of my life." FEAR OF FLYING examines a similar problem. For all the excitement about big penises be- ing the ultimate, there are an amazing amount of limp ones be- tween the sheets. Isadora Wing, five years into her. second marriage, has the itch. She wonders if it is time to settle down and begin having b a b i e s, or time to move on. "After so many years of being half of something (like two back legs of a horse outfit on a vaude- ville stage)," she wants to know if she can be whole. She travels with her psychia- trist husband to Vienna for a Congress on the opening of a museum for Freud. She plans on writing a satiric article on the Congress' activities, but the re- sult is a parody of her own fears and desires. She meets Adrian Goodlove, an expedient analyst, who she hopes will satisfy her prurient appetite. The Freudian fantasy falls short, but encouraged by his insouciant manner she trades in her con- jugal blandness for the possi- bility of concubinal bliss.. In a bibulous whirlwind they motor through Europe; and like impulsive new lovers try to dis- cover their future through an. illumination of the past. ISADORA TELLS the story of her first husband whose fervor for the Second Coming led to his impotency and insanity; and of her present spouse Bennett, an automaton, who "knows every- thing about life except that hav- ing fun ought to be part of it." She reaches-even further back, relating the frustrations of her mother, whose artistic impulses were stifled by a father who paited over her canvases; and BOOKS- MIXED MOODS On man's weakness and nature's beauty . . Isadora's sisters who perform the function of baby machines with alacrity and efficiency, angrily questioning why Isadora cannot make the same commitment. But Isadora wants to control her own fate-a survival requir- ing rebirth of self rather than the creation of new souls. In her poems she tries to se- duce the world and to provide a balance for her audience. In real- ity she is more often the seduced than the seducer and her own life lacks the equilibrium she creates for her readers. She makes sharp distinctions between love and sex. The for- mer is "serious and sober;" the latter "yummy and delicious." Love is lasting security, sex is brief, without power games or ulterior m o t i v e s, a "platonic ideal" and something she has yet to taste. Love requires an obligation, sex implores freedom; but Isadora is too altrustic to be totally independent. AS HER NAME implies, Isa- dora Zelda Wing is a schizo- phrenic romantic and despite her (Continued on Page 5) 4 --______--_____--__U E Monday at 8:00 p.m. Our Common Council will vote upon a proposed McDonald's Restaurant in the new Maynard Street area. We urge the Council to reject this proposal as being inimical to the spirit of our com- 0 whereas the historic League House across from Lane Hall was destroyed, giving way to Gino's, Inc. * Whereas the proposed McDonald's, Inc., is upon the now-standing Hall House beside Nickels Arcade and * Whereas Burger King will soon be building a two-storied structure at the end of Maynard Street " Therefore, an affirmative vote would allow the existence of three out-of- state based food chains within 1H blocks of each other in the traditional State Street area. This intensive and needless concentration would result in increased traffic snarls, excessive litter, and in general do detriment to the Ii t II Ij 'I SELECTED POEMS: 1957- 1967 by Ted Hughes. New York: Harper & Row; pages, $7.95 By MARY LONG TED HUGHES is unmatched in his realization of the tre- mendous non-human quality of life. Early in Selected Poems: 1957 - 1967, it becomes forcibly apparent that human emotions simply do not concern him. Per- sonal feelings, attachments, sen- timents - these seem all mere- ly expressive to this British poet, and "expression" is mechanical, meaningless and nearly deserv- ing of contempt in his eyes. Un- like most poets, who catch mere intimations of other worlds, Hughes literally presents to us the unknown, unseen forces of life in his verse. No empty rhetoric or false poetic language here. His voice is formidable, almost brutal. Hughes is one of a small group of poets ultimately obsessed with survival, whose work is ade- aate to the cold and destructive reality man currently inhabits. The sixty-seven poems which comprise Selected Poems were chosen by the poet himself from his first three books of verse: The Hawk in the Rain (1957); Iynercal (1960); and Wodwo (1967). The first fifteen poems, taken from The Hawk in the Rain, vir- t ially stink with contemot at mankind and his inevitable con- dition of weakness. Hughes looks at humanity in a cold and unrelenting bright light as he tags man helpless and disgusting in his confrontation with an un- ensv, iagged world. rTHEN SUDDENLY, as one is still shuddering from the un- relieved cruelty of poems such as "Six Young Men" and "The Martyrdom of Bishop Farrar", Hughes turns his vision to the world of animals and, amazingly, he is now his most expressive. Beasts are documented with the resnect, the awe, almost with the tenderness, that he never sees humanity deserving of. The style of the poem "Ja- guar" is very simple. The dic- tion is almost colloquial, like ev- eryday speech, but the effect is one of power, grandeur, and dig- nity. The verse, though blank and rhymeless, moves effortless- ly from the patterns of common speech to formal iambics and back again. Nevertheless the a delicate, alternating pattern ex- presses with astonishing accur- acy the relationship between Hughes' own confused, pierc- ing thoughts and the sinuous ma- jesty of the caged jaguars' des- perate movements. In the second section of his book, the twenty-two poems tak- en from Lupercal, Hughes most fully enters his chosen domain of the natural world. The preci- sion and passion of his view of stones, otters, thrushes, cats and skylarks, is both intense and exciting in its freshness. Hughes' demand for exactness, in his nature images is reminis-' cent of D. H. Lawrence. Nattire is important to virtually any poet, but it is generally some- thing symbolically glimpsed from the edge of ones' own back- yard. For Hughes, nature is a part of ones' consciousness, al- most a portion of one's own body. Indeed, it could be said that Hughes becomes that which he has touched or seen. OCCASIONALLY in Lupercal, Hughes' heavy touch is re- lieved. "Thrushes" for exam- ple, has bits of casual authentic- ity which are delightful in their spare bright clearness. Hughes, at 43, is in the rare and difficult position of having been acclaimed as a major poet while still a young man. His tac- tical relationship with nature was undoubtedly influenced to some extent by the exquisite countryside landscapes he was exposed to while growing up in Yorkshire, England. Some of Hughes' current no- teriety is attributed to his for- mer marriage to Sylvia Plath. The author of several volumes of poetry (The Colossus; Ariel) and an autobiographical novel, (The Bell Jar), Plath committed suicide in 1963. Hughes current- ly lives with their three chi- dren and his second wife in De- von, England. The final poems, from Hughes' Wodwo, make up the most dra- matic and diverse portion of the book. Here, Hughes seems to risk ex- Ted Hughes pression at 4'any cost. Both the despair attributed to man's weakness and the glory and es- sentialness of Hughes' animals are described in rushing desper- ate phrases. HERE IS a fighting tattempt to e x p r e s a everything. Hughes wants much more than an instrument of known mathe- matical measurement such as ordinary iambic. Indeed, he wants more than words them- selves. But he does not seem com- pletely successful here. The verse trips too fast, the reader is left breathless. Yet, aside from their head- long haste, the words are com- pelling in the quicksand sense of life they impart.' And' they make clear Hughes' continuing suc- cess with the kinetic line. His best poems have a combination of urgency and vividness that touches the readers emotions di- rectly. Poems such as "Her Husband" and "Cleopatra to the Asp" are predominately erotic, yet have as much scenery in them as most of the nature poems -- and atmosphere is perhaps their most important element. Selected Poems, like its black jacket and the six stark pen- and-ink animal portraits by illus- trator Leonard Baskin, is power- ful and undeflected. Very little delicacy is found within it. In- stead, there is a direct confron- tation with a remarkably assur- ed and impressive style and an amazing variety of moods and themes. Hughes' poems are as- tonishing. They are productsof the finest intelligence and the most complete honesty. Daily staffer Mary Long re- cently won a Hopwood award for her poetry. I DID YOU KNOW? monday night is...... STUDENTS NIGHT ALL Students - NO Cover Charge Pitcher of Beer Half-Price!!! SPRING BREAK MARCH 1-MARCH 9 sophisticated yet fragile spirit that has distinguished Ann Arbor for 150 $239 + 10.50 Based on double occupancy years. F:YDDFC VAlID rivir DDIlnF ('All VnID flhlNii MAN Regency Travel 611 Church St. i m .