,y
Eighty.Three Years of Editorial Freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Letters: Fan
mail and good advice
420 Maynard St., Ann-Arbor, Mi. 48104
News Phone: 764-0552
FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1974
Urging LSA to adopt report
THE LSA COMMISSION on Graduation
Requirements published a doubly.
surprising report in Wednesday's Daily.
Not only was it a relatively clear and un-
derstandable document - as few Uni-
versity committee - produced papers are
- but the report actually makes several
provocative, positive suggestions, includ-
ing:
* A complete overhaul of the present
admissions process.
* A new program aimed at attracting
potential undergraduates older than the
prime 18-22 age bracket to the University.
* A new regulation transforming all
LSA classes to either four or two credit
hours. Credit hours required for gradua-
tion would be raised from the present 120
to 128.
* A proposal that present restrictions
on drop-adding be removed.
* A new, eight credit "maxi-course"
be offered to freshmen to introduce them
"to the intellectual challenges and re-
sources of the University."
* A recommendation that the Dean.
and the LSA Student Government estab-
lish a complaint office "so that inade-
quacies in our administrative appara-
tus can be quickly identified."
THESE ARE FAR-REACHING proposals
which, if completely implemented,
would greatly change the face of LSA.
Basically, much of the present bureau-
cratic hassling would be eliminated; more
importantly, however, what remained
would be clearly defined, and much eas-
ier for the uninitiated student to under-
stand.
Under the new distribution require-
nents, for example, students could se-
lect from either three pre-planned "pat-
terns" of distribution or, if they prefer-
red, could formulate their own program
of any 32 hours of credit outside of their
field of concentration. The present lab-
oratory requirement would be eliminated.
The four-hour proposal is a bold step
that could add an exciting new dimen-
sion to University education-especially
if, as the Commission urges, the addi-
tional fourteen hours per term are used
for more than just another lecture.
THE COMMISSION'S suggestion that
the College Board's Achievement
Tests be dropped as an admission re-
quirement is a heartening one. Hope-
fully, this would help alleviate the per-
plexing situation where bright minority
students who could easily receive finan-
cial aid once admitted are nevertheless
out of the University by the preliminary
application fees.
We hope - for the benefit of both stu-
dents and faculty - that LSA will care-
fully consider the well-though-out sug-
gestions of its Graduation Requirements
Commission.
-DAVID BLOMQUIST
health
To The Daily:
MEDICAL Mediators,. the local
organization to helpconsumers
with their problems with health
care providers, may itself benefit
from a service which has existed
at the University Hospital for
nearly two years. It is called,
Healthy Line.
By no means perfect nor an an-
swer to all patients' problems,
Healthy Line is a 24-hour telephone
service located in the P u b I i
Information Office of the Hos-
pital.
By calling 763-4400, any day or
any hour, the patient, family mem-
ber or friend may leave a brief
statement of the problem and ex-
pect a response within 24 hours.
Even though unable to solve all
problems immediately, we do ack-
nowledge each call, and we send
a statement of the problem by
special memo to the department or
person capable of handling it.
Healthy Line does not handle
medical -inquiries, release patient
information, or make appointments
for care, emergency or otherwi-e.
The service gets an average of
three calls per day, and problems
seem mainly to be concerned with
billing or clerical matters. T h e
service is widely advertised
through the Hospital.
Our office considers it part of
its responsibility to work with pa-
tients treated at University H o s-
pital, and we are more than will-
ing to cooperate with such organ-
izations as Medical Mediators.
-Louis Graff, Director
Health Sciences Relations
University of Michigan
Feb. 25
cooperation
To The Daily:
READING THE campaign liter-
ature for the upcoming city coun-
cil elections April 1, it seems clear
that Democrat and HRP candidates
are in substantial agreement on
many points of practical import-
ance to people who live in Ann Ar-
bor. In fact whatever differences
there are between local Democrats
and local Human Rights party con-
stituents, they are academic so
long as the Republicans are in
power. Whether from the stand-
point of human rights, the environ-
ment, or the well-being of the city
and its citizenry in general it is
fairly imperative that the Repub-
licans be defeated quickly.
Might there be some way then,
by which Democrat and HhP can-
didateg could have a primary to se-
lect the stronger candidate in each
ward where splitting the vote
would give the seat to the Repub-
licans . . . for example in the
Fourth Ward? This might be done
by means of an actual informal
primary or else by a survey con-
ducted by pairs of inter viewers,
one from each party. If s> cessful-
ly carried off this could furm a
valuable precedent for use in, oth-
er places as well.
If, on the other hand the cam-
paign is going to be characterized
by petty rivalry between Democrat
"Whether from the
standpoint of human
rights, the environ-
ment,, or the well-
being of the city . .
the Republicans be
defeated quickly."
and HRP candidates (as has been
the case so far), then perhaps we
deserve to have profiteers contin-
ue to rape the city in the name of
"progress" and "chacgng what
the traffic will bear," and we
deserve to have to live underground
while the morality of the cocktail
party parades itself..
-Bob Milbrath
School of Business.
Administration
Feb. 26
workers
To The Daily:
I HOPE THAT Jon Crane's ar-
ticle (Sunday Magazine, February
9) is not representative of t h e
quality of Daily journalism. His
poor methodology has led him to
serious errors in his attempt to
give us an "inside look" at t h e
lifestyle of young factory workers
in Monroe - a glimpse at how the
other half lives. He appears to
base broad generalizations on a
few snatches of conversation. Hav-
ing spent eighteen months work-
ing at a Ford stamping plant just
a few miles up 1-75 from Mon-
roe, I know that no "overpower-
ing sense of responsibility" to jobs
exists among the young single
workers. Furthermore, Crane's fig-
ures are inconsistent. With an
above average attendance record,
it is difficult to make less t h a n
$11,000 per year. I have never
observed missing work to cause
"self-hatred" - especially on hot
known that absenteeism is a major
problem in the automobile indus-
try. Granted, among married
workers, regularity is more pro-
nounced. In the future, I hope
your writers will be more rigorous
in their reporting.
-Lawrence J. Radecki, Grad
Feb. 11
solidarity
To The Daily:
IT'S OFTENibeen observed that
Mankind has its myths, but that
fact would not be so disturbing
except for the desperation w i t h
which we delude ourselves. In the
18th Century, kings claimed to
rule by divine right in order to
bring order and peace to t h e
world. In the 19th Century, the
White Man shouldered his burden
of civilizing the world. Having had
these schemes (and others) blow
up in our faces, however, what do
we do? We troop down to hear Pat
Sumi spin tales of another savior,
the Working People. "Only when
the working people have mastery
of society can we overcome rac-
ism," she says. Having spent some
time in 'the working' class, t h i s
seems somewhat unrealistic to
me. The working class is just as
racist and self-seeking as a n y
other, and when or if it gets con-
trol it wil do just what any other
special interest group does when
it gets control; that is, lord it
over the rest.
According to Lenin, +he October
1917 revolution was intended to set
up a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Did they eliminate racism task a
Jew?) Did they eliminate imper-
ialism (ask a Czech)? Well, may-
be Russia got off the track. China
set up a dictatorship of the pro-
letariat. But if a Chinese dis-
agrees with Mao, holds a relig-
ious belief, or, for that matter,
insists on staying neutral, he/she
had better wish he/she were in
Russia. Well, maybe China got
of the track . . . and so it goes
on and on, through any country,
capitalist or socialist, dictatorship
or democracy, run by any class or
race or combination thereof.
SUMI BELIEVES that the only
solution to racism and exploita-
tion comes from all people work-
ing together. Well, try *ha. some-
time. Anyone with delusions of
Third World People's Solhdarity
should take an unguided touir of
Asia, Africa, or Latin America, and
see how the third world people
treat each . other. The concl--sion
is that Man is Man, and five or
six millennia of recorded history
(and who knows how many of un-
recorded history before that)
should ocnvince even the most dy-
ed-in-the-wool humanist that Man
doesn't learn from his 'her mn;s-
takes. The old movie line, "You
got ,us into this mess, now you
get us out," is quite foolish; any-
one incompetent enough to lead a
group into troulbe is only likely
to make things worse by trying to
get them out. So it is with us. We
invent the airplane, and hail it .as
an instrument to bring peoples to-
gether; and then drop arnfs on
each other from them. We invent
radio and T.V. to communicate
and understand one another bet-
ter; and use them to spread poli-
tical propaganda. We develop soc-
ial, political and eeonanmic p r 0-
grams and movements to bng
justice to the world, and find our-
selves being led around by the
nose by political opportunists.
Well, what is to be done? This
seems an awf Illy gloomy and pes-
simistic viewpoint to taxe. Not at
all. Even if it were, he bliss of
ignorance is dangerous, especially
that of willful ignorance. But tne
optimism is that, having found a
few ways that don't work, people
look outside themselves for one
that will. Hopefully some people
will realize that mankind can't solve
the problems it has gotten itself
into, and will wake up and look
elsewhere, trying other sources
(maybe even God; who knows?
He's never been tried, or at least
not according to instructions). At
any rate, the ,sooner we stop play-
ing around with our fantasies and
start some'serious looking, t h e
better.
-Thomas N. Beach
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Jill ,
The GOP and impeachment
By GARY P. THOMAS
SEE DICK. See Dick sitting in the W h i t e
House. See Dick sell the Republican Party
down the river.
The deal went ,down in Miami in 1972, and
only now are Republicans begining to see just
how they have been screwed.
Michigan's 5th Congressional District is
solid GOP country - a bed of Republican con-
servatism. The last time a Democrat won there
was in 1910 - until last week.
Gerald Ford had never gotten less than 60
per cent of the vote in the 5th. So when he as-
cended to the vice-presidency to replace Spiro
T. Agnew, pollsters and pundits naturally as-
sumed the vacant House seat would go to the
GOP heir apparent, Robert Vander Laan.
Not so.'
In a stunning upset, Democrat Richard Van-
der Veen, campaigning on a theme of the "mo-
ral bankruptcy" of the Nixon Administration,
swept the district in an election that sent Re-
publicans scurrying for cover.
IN HIS FIRST news conference of the year
Monday night, President Nixon did not mention
Watergate as a deciding factor in upcoming con-
gressional elections.
"I think this will be a good year for those
candidates standing for the administration,"
said Nixon.
State GOP chairman William McLaughlin
disagrees. The defeat in the 5th, he said, was
"a disaster for Republicans in Michigan."
In a conversation with McLaughlin after
the Nixon press conference Monday night, he
sA hp "rtms,±Fntl1v Adsarsp" with the Pres-
up is for Congress to enforce the toustitu-
tion."
NIXON IS DETERMINED to stay in office.
He refuses to see the handwriting on the wall
- that his own party faces disaster at the
polls in November because of him.
At the 1972 Republican convention, Nixon
knew, of course, that he could not serve ano-
ther term. The GOP had put him into the White
House, but after his nomination and election, he
could afford to alienate the GOP - which he
promptly did through his handling of Water-
gate affair.
He has placed Republican candidates in an
impossible position. If they run against Nixon,
they lose the diehard GOP support. If they
stand with him, they lose the power of the ticket-
splitting vote.
THE POLITICAL barometer, as indicated by
the election in the 5th District, points to a solid
defeat for the GOP in November. Watergate re-
mains unresolved, and Democrats are going to
milk the issue for all its worth while voter dis-
satisfaction is at an all-time high.
In Michigan itself, Gov. William G. Milliken
will face an uphill battle in his reelection bid
in November.
The path of the Repubican Party is clear:
GOP members of Congress must vote to im-
peach Nixon. If they care at all about their
political survival, which all politicians do, they
must move to get Nixon out of office.
TO STAND BY Nixon will tell voters that
the Republican Party tolerates corruption and
dishonestv in its elected officials. If that hap-
Thompson
To The Daily:
IT IS LITTLE short of pathetic
that from three allegedly independ-
ent perspectives, the D a i l y
could produce but one view of the
Hunter S. Thompson lecture. I
suspect you sent one reporter who
uses three names. But my quar-
rel is not really witth the redun-
dancy of your reporters, but rath-
er their density. All three parroted
the tired notionthat if a political
speaker isn't deadly serious and
purposive, he's a bore and a
waste of time. They might look to
their own writing if they are sin-
cerely concerned about boring peo-
ple and wasting time, but more to
the point, this is the same old
garbage that the alleged radicals
on your paper have been pouring
out for years, though this time col-
ored in contemporary temper tan-
trum.
"How dare Hunter Thompson
come to our campus and not take
us seriously. We're students, we're
radicals, we're sincere. It s o u r
university and our course and our
dollar bills and if he doesn't play
our way we simply won't play."
Christ, who's the bore? The ar-
ticles reminded me of that brick
who got up from the audience
and asked, "Hunter what are we
gonna do? A bunch of morons are
running the government and all
the serious people are oni the out-
side." Can anybody really believe
that that's what's nappening?
AT SOME point you have to
consider that perhaps Ralph Nad-
er doesn't know "the real truths
in American political lif.-," that
perhaps there aren't an real
truths. Nader's fine, he's got his
place and his function and he does
it. But I can't identify witn the
kind of outraged, compulsive, 'ser-
ious' political behavior he'3 come
to represent (and which the Daily
apes). Government isn't a '65 Cor-
vair, it's an organic process, and
the kind of clinical, didacric lec-
tures which the 'serious' people at
the Daily demand, are false and'
illusory. As for Thompson, he liv-
es his philosophy and doesn't feel
compelled to preach it. Just as the
thrust of his journalism attacks the
fallacy of 'objective' reportiag, the
pretentious notion that the journal-
ist can be independent of the event,
when he is, in fact, part of it, the
lesson of Thompson's lec.ure was
that successful political criticism
can't be precise, impersonal a n d
intellectual. 'They', the morons,
to political thought. Those who lis-
tened heard Thompson speak of
liking Pat Buchanan even though
he thought him politically obtuse;
of his discovery that Richard Nix-
on, that plastic man, had a relax-
ed and human side. Those who lis-
tened heard Thompson suggest
that Edward Kennedy would prove
more valuable to the left t h a it
George McGovern, because Ken-
nedy remained open and educable.
Those who listened heard Thomp-
son tell of McGovern's persistent
delusion that it was Eagleton and
a coincidental conservative trend
that defeated him. But, as Thomp-
son suggested, McGovern b e a t
himself in '72. His humorless and
absolute dedication to 'principle'
had him tripping al over himself
trying to prove sincerity, and in
the process turned millions of vot-
ers to Nixon, whom they knew as
an equally large but more famil-
iar jerk.
If national elections were held
solely in this community of 'ser-
ious' people, Ralph Nader could
be our President; but we'll have
to do something about humanizing
the image of radicalism, and
knocking the prop of 'seriousness'
from its pretensions, before it will
have any appeal to the bulk of the
American populace, whose only
response to these White Knight fan-
tasies is, "Come off it." I sug-
gest Hunter S. Thompson has tak-
en a step in that direction.
-Dennis Earl Ross, '74
Feb. 14
refs
To The Daily:
DURING THE football season, I
was very pleased with the Daily's
explanations of several calls by
the officials. It seems, however,
that basketball has a different
breed of officials who rarely make
the right call - especially against
the Wolverines. The impetus which
caused me to write this letter was
an article in the Sunday, February
17 edition by George Hastings. In
the article, Mr. Hastings states
about the Indiana game, "A n d
they had the usual Big Ten home-
club edge from the officials, who
dispatched Michigan's starting
;uards on some awfully cheap
Fouls. Also, several times when
listening to the broadcast of games
on WUOM-FM I have heard the
commentators make incorect ex-
planations of calls or declare an
afficial wrong when he was right
and the commentator obviously
lidn't know the rules. As a high
school and college IM basketball
official, I think it's time that it
was recognized what a difficult
job the officials have and what a
superlative job they do in per-
forming it.
FIRST OF ALL, officials are neu-
tral and it doesn't matter where
the game is played or who hired
the officials. Secondly, 95 per cent
of the dispute over calls is due to
lack of knowledge of the rules
by players, commentatorsand re-
porters or spectators. College ball
is not played in the rough-style of
professional teams. Finally, it is
extremely difficult for two, or even
three, oficials to watch closely the
action of ten speeding athletes
on a basketball court. From their
position on the floor, however, they
have a 100 per cent better view of
the actual action than anyone 46
or even 2 rows up in Assembly hall
or Crisler Arena.
In short, the officials do not de-
termine the outcome of any game
- that is done by performance,
within the stated rules of the two
teams. The officials are simply
there to see that the rules are ob-
served. "Spectator" or "Back-
Seat" officials should stop "blow-
ing their tops" and let the trained
officials blow their whistles.
-Bob Labanowski
Feb. 17
comparisons
To The Daily:
IT WAS interesting that an ar-
ticle appeared in the Daily com-
paring University of Michigan
teaching fellow benefits to other
Big Ten schools. The University
used similar statistics in answer
to the data gathered by law school
secretaries who compared clerical
staff salaries at U.M. to ealaries at
other schools in this area and in
the state.
Comparisons with other Big Ten
schools does not take into con-
sideration a number of important
factrs such as cost of living in-
formation, the effect of the state
income tax, the differences in
base (in-state) tuition rates at the
various Big Ten Schools. S u c h
supplementary data is necessary
in order for informed considera-
tion of the merits of the case for
either teaching fellows or other
staff. I think it would be of value
to the whole University commun-
ity if such data were ferreted out
and made public. I 'hope sone
group will decide to take on this
challenge.
-Name withheld by request
Feb. 22
subjectivity
To The Daily:
BY NOW, I have become accus-
tomed to the fact that the c h i e f
honchos of the Daily insist upon
editorializing throughout t h e i r
"newspaper." Indeed, the mere
existence of a specifically desig-,
nated editorial page is a virtual
sham, since subjective opinionating
is liberally 'sprinkled . throughout
the less-than-august journal.
I noted a particularly disgusting
example of this in the Sunday,
February 10 Daily. In the section
entitled "The Week in Review," re-
ference was made to certain ac-
tions taken' by Mat Hoffman at
last Thursday's SGC meeting
(which I attended).
The author of the article, Chris
Parks, has contemptuously a n d
wronkly contended that the purpose
of Mr. Hoffman's actions w a s
specifically to offend certain rac-
ial minorities. This contention is
absurd. It assumes that any ar-
gument one might have with a
member of another race is rac-
ially motivated. Both Mat and I
happen to hold both white and
nonwhite advocates of the lettuce
boycott in equal contempt.
I SPEAK as a close friend of
Mat's in asserting that any claim
made to the effect that he is a
racist is without foundation. It's
just too damn bad that certain
individuals were offended by Mat's
lettuce consumption. It ought to'
be pointed out, as an aside, that
there have always been a great
many Chicanos who are disgusted
by Cesar Chavez and wish to have
nothing to do with him and his
boycotts. I could therefore ju4t as
reasonably state that advocacy of
the lettuce and grape boycotts is
anti-Chicano. This demonstrates
the absurdity of invoking the ques-
tion of race into these matters.- To
repeat, if some Chicanos w e r e
offended by Mat's lettuce consump-
tion (the reason for which he care-
fully explained), that's too bad.
To me, the symbolismof' at's
lettuce consumption is akin to the
destruction of -an auotomVile on
the Diag which took place a few
yars ago, in the sense *bat both
acts sought to concretize a parti-
cular point of view. I was deeply
offended by the creepswwho de-
stroyed that car, but, of course,
the Daily wasn't around to sooth
my bruised feelings.
If minority groups on this cam-
pus think that opponents of s;me
of their doctrines will be inhibited
and intimidated by having their
motives impugned, they're sadly
mistaken.
I NEED NOT dwell -ipon the
case of Ted Liu. Mat stated that
he was rebuking Liu for' a recent
demonstration of physical force, an
act that Mat would vigor-.sly. p-
pose no matter who performed
it. Chris Parks claims that Mat an-
tagonized "Asians" by his anti-
Liu motion. For the life of me, I
can't recall another Asian aside
from Liu in attendance at the
meeting. Students on this campus
ought to vigorously oppose such
reckless distortions of fact.
Contrary to Mr. Parks' assump-
tion, Mat has no interest in "bait-
ing" any racial minority on cam-
pus.
-Alan Harris
Feb. 14
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oppression
To The Daily:
AS FACULTY members of The
University of Michigan and spec-
ialists in the field of Chinese Stu-
dies, we are writing you to ex-
press our immediate concern for
the plight and welfare of the Sov-
iet Jewish Sinologist Vitali A. Ru-
bin. As the enclosed resume and
documents explain, Mr. Rubin has
sought for two full years to emi-
grate from the U.S.S.R. and to
carry on his research in ancient
Chinese history and philosophy
elsewhere.
His government has repeatedly
denied his requests to go abroad
and has cut off nearly all of his
communication with the outside
world. Likewise, his scholarly
writings have been suppressed des-
pite the fact that he has been
classified "an important special-
ist." Indeed, his situation has be-
as well, we are disturbed that he
is not allowed to work in the Unit-
ed States and to be in direct com-
munication with us; for we had
hoped that during his stay in New
York, he might visit The Univer-
sity of Michigan, exchange with us
and our students valuable insights
into subjects of mutual interest,
and keep us abreast of Soviet schol-
arship on China. As long as he is
denied freedom to choaae where
to work and with whom to commun-
icate - certainly, these are basic
human and academic rghts - we
all suffer a loss.
WHILE sympathetic to the prob-
lems encountered by many Soviet
Jews, the U.S, State Department,
in- the past has repeatedly stated
that it is "not in a position to in-
tervene directly in cases w h e r e
Soviet citizens wish to go to third
countries, as with Professor Ru-
and students at The University of
Michigan have taken a personal in-
terest, would it not "e most ap-
propriate for our government to
take concrete action on his behalf?
We respectfully ask that you per-
sonally do whatever can be done
through the State Department and
other offices of the U.S. govern-
ment to secure an exit permit for
Vitali Rubin and his wife. His best
hope for continuing his career as a
scholar, and it may well be his
only hope at this point, is the kind
of pressure vhich you and other
members of the United S t a t e s
Congress are able to exert.
Thank you very much for your
kind attention and coope!-ation in
this urgent matter.
-J. I. Crump, Prof. of
Chinese
Robert F. Dernberger,
MR. RUBIN currently has a
standing invitation to go to Colum-