Page 4-Saturday, December 10, 1977-The Michigan Daily

What happened to

the class of '78?

By JIM TOBIN
There are alumni, most of them nearing thir-
ty years old now if not past the mark already,
who stop_ off in Ann Arbor and shake their
heads. They stroll across the Diag, eat lunch at
a favorite old haunt, then shake their heads
again and say it isn't the same. You
missed it, they tell us who are here
now. You missed the war, you missed the
protests, you missed fights with police and
Woodstock and everything else; and they gen-
tly condemn we students of 1978 for betraying
their legacy: a habit of protest, a shared
feeling of caring about things, the spirit of the
Sixties.
And this is all rather a pain in the ass to we
who are trying to live our lives in a worthwhile
way.in this great shadow of what came before.
It has been a hard act to follow for those who
entered college the autumn after Gerald Ford
became President. The war was over,
Watergate was over; the class of '78 came
to Ann Arbor when there seemed little more to
protest about. A new "Silent Generation", this,
college generation is being called, with nothing;
to say or do. Our older brothers and sisters had:
all the fun, we're told, and now we've betrayed
the tradition. And that is a maddening
thing-yet under the annoyance at the banality
of Sixties-nostalgia, under the protestations
that yes, we are aware of the world and what is
happening in it, we know inside that the old
radical alumni are right. The campus has
changed from a place of emotion, tension, and
ethical concern to a place of dull determination

to succeed :in a world that has already been
made for us, a status quo world we are eager to
join and have no particular desire to change.
Something used to be happening here, and now
nothing is happening, and as we prepare to
leave Ann Arbor and the University, it is
crushingly frustrating not to know what made
the difference between then and now.
WHY DOES a generation of college students
turn inward? Why are careers more important
than trying to change things? Why do frater-
nities gain more and more memgbers each term
now people who saythey simply seek "better
friends" and "don't like the dorm," yet are
symbols of an indifference to the concerns that
made fraternities unpopular before-mostly a
scorn for tradition? Why is an issue such as in-
vestments in apartheid South Africa, perhaps
easier to comprehend than a Vietnam, all but
ignored? A student newspaper rails against it,
foreign students protest it, yet American
students lie dormant, not only uncaring but
unaware? Why?
Where is the "what-the-hell-let's-do-it" drive
that, prompted a short-haired, bespectacled
student, pictured in the 1968 Michigan year-
book, to stand outside Angell Hall with a poster
that read "Strike for peace; strike for your
freedom; strike for your power; strike for
whatever the hell you feel like striking for"?
The class of '78 was 12 years old in the sum-
mer of 1968, 13 at the moon landing, not quite 14
at Kent State. We grew up with the headlines of
change and unrest, and so many of them were
the doings of students at the age we are soon to

leave behind. It is all a puzzle we will never put
together. Yet the need to know why we are not
the same makes us wonder, too, what we are
like.
* * *
THE SIXTIES now are a bag of myths and
memories. The '68 and '70 alums sound like the
old Establishmentarians they would have
despised, telling old tales and reciting past

toward with a sense that w
ference to the world? And w
there hasn't been anything
us.
One is tempted to say that
that there were no issues ar
But it isn't so. Civil right
rights abroad-the issues ha
had only looked. Instead,
selves and to an uncertain ft


'Something

used to be happening

now nothing is happening, and as weI
leave Ann Arbor and the University, i
ingly frustrating not to know what ma
ference between then and now. '

Ne all made a dif- difficult to think of any trace of us that will stay
e must answer that behind in Ann Arborwhen we leave.
at all like that for THE WORLD we are so eager to join, of course,
is none too eager to have us aboard. The class of
that isn't our fault, '68, when it was ready to go, found plenty of spots
ound which to rally. waiting. Not so for us. Why is this class so
s at home, human reluctant to worry about changing the
ve been there if we established order of things? Perhaps because it
we looked to our- has had to work so hard for the chance to join it.
uture. We prepared That is what the University is all about these
days-work. Professors no longer give a
student the C over the D because if they did not
her a d the student would be drafted and sent to Viet-
here, and nam. In 1977, professors vow to puncture grade
prepare to inflation, and that means this class has had to
spare nearly everything but its studies. If the
t is crush- class of '68 remembers that it was, above all, a
lot of fun to go on strike and protest and feel as
de the dif- if you were doing something important, the
class of '78 will remember that winter nights of
studying were painfully tedious, and the trips"
to the bar in between were inadequate
remedies. It isn't much fun to be a student now.
squeezed out of a We have four months left before Commen-
"Job market." If cement; too little time to change the University
8's byword, certainly or the world, or even have much more fun. To
y own. College has law offices, business offices, and hospitals we
we paused to stock proceed with credentials in hand. There is-
d. It has not been a much in that for this class to be proud of, and'
ctual offerings and we are certainly grateful that there is no.
ed at the University American war for us to protest. Moaning over
to change together the demise of the Sixties spirit is just so much
The point is that we triteness. Perhaps our challenge will come
being "ours." Each later. All this preparation, one hopes, will do
roblems, MY plans, someone some good some day.
"-finra A And an ifi



glories. "Remember the South University
riots? Wow. And the7 sit-ins?" "How about the
strike?" Common action, common triumphs
and defeats. This, I have to think, accounts
more for the longing for the Sixties spirit than
any pride in true accomplishnlpnts. There were
indeed important accomplishments by studen-
ts but like other humans, the fun for them
was in the doing. I think that is what the
graduates from those days remember now.
So what will the class of '78 remember
together 10 years from now? What have we
felt together, longed for together, worked

feverishly before getting
shrinking job market."
"Peace" was the class of '68
"Job market" is our very
been a way-station at which
up skills for the grind ahea
time to savor for its intelle
diversity, nor have we looke
as something we wantedt
and leave our mark upon. T
don't look at anything as b
student is devoted to MYpr
MY ever, ever approaching

tuiure. Ana so it is

Jim Tobin is co-editor of The Daily.

~br Sidtian 9a4I1Y
Eighty-Eight Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 77 News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Non-rftsports Woes


Letters to

The Daily

E VERYBODY WAS psyched for the
first big game of the basketball
season - Michigan versus Louisville -
as they. entered Crisler Arena Wednes-
day evening. But what most of those
fans didn't know was that one big game
had already been: played that" evening
the Michigan women's team had de-
eated its counterpart from Louisville.
But the victory was cheapened. The
game was running late, and with 3:45
remaining, officials were worried that.
the women's game might disrupt the
start of the main event - the men's
game. So Assistant Athletic Director
Charles Harris, under pressure from
coach Johnny Orr and assistant coach
Bill Frieder, instructed the timekeep-
ers to let the clock run, even if the ball
went out of bounds, or if someone was
shooting a free throw. This obviously
sped up the play, and the men's game
started on time. But the women felt
slighted, and appropriately so. Michi-
gan was certainly pleased by its 71-68
victory, but the players knew the win
was tainted by the unusual clock adjust-
ment.
Why did the women's game have to
be ruined just to start the men's game
on time? True, the men's game was an
important one, but would it have hurt to
have the opening tip-off postponed a
measly five minutes? And besides, the

women's game was important too.
Maybe not to all 13,609 screaming fans,
but it was important to the players.
They played just as hard and strove to
win just as much as the men. So why
are they the ones shortchanged? Be-
ciuse the mei s varsit briigs in thGA
fans, and the fans , brifig in the bucks.
It's not a sexism' problem, no the
University is non-discriminatory in its
neglect of non-money making sports.
The athletic department simply doesn't
give a damn about women's, intra-
mural, and junior varsity sports. Bo
and Orr have all the money and the in-
fluence. They get whatever they want,
while the other University sports pro-
grams flounder from lack of funds.
THIS IS WRONG: the athletic de-
partment's priorities are warped.
Women's, intramural and junior var-
sity sports deserve more attention. By
focusing mainly on the profitable
sports, the University is reaching only
the select few athletes able to partici-
pate at that high level of competition.
But by concentrating on the other levels
of sports competition on campus, the
University can reach thousands more
students. And after all, it is the average
student, not the star athlete, who consti-
tutes the majority of this campus, so
shouldn't they receive at least equal
consideration?

capitalism is slavery
To The Daily:
The Daily (Nov. 22) decried its
investments in U.S. corporations
which help to support white su-
premacy in South Africa and
which corporations pay slave
wages. Surely, the editors of the
Daily must know that the wage
system is a system of slavery.
They should also be aware, it
would seem, that wage workers
in the United States have little
control over whether or not they
have employment and even less
control over the terms of that em-
ployment. In other words, are
funds invested in American cor-
porations which exploit Ameri-
can wyorkers used more ethically
or, in the long run, put to more
humane use than funds which
American corporations use to ex-
ploit African workers?
Is there no way out of the
world-wide dilemra of capital-
ism? Obviously it is corporate
(capitalist) exploitation which
needs to be terminated, both in
Africa and in the United States. It
is well known that an evil will
persist until the root of the evil is
destroyed. The tap root of cap-
-italist exploitation is in the
United States. When workers
learn that they carry on all of the
useful function in society but now
have practically no voice or vote
as to how those functions are car-
ried on or for what purposes, they
will begin to organize to take the
ownership and control of the fac-
tories, distribution systems and
natural resources out of the han-
ds of capitalist wasters and ex-
ploiters. Workers, when unified
into what has been called "one
big union" will have devised the
administrative organization
which will be the twentieth cen-
tury form of government, the So-

cialist Industrial' Republic.
American workers have it in
their power to end both ex-
ploitation by capitalists and a
horse and buggy political form of
government at one and the same
time and to put the skids under
capitalist exploitation elsewhere,
Africa included.
- Ralph Muncy,
1923, Forestry and
Conservation
CRISPed again
To The Daily:
Once again it is that favorite
time of the year; time to CRISP.
Once again I am a victim of the U
of M bureaucracy surrounding
the CRISP madness. As a cross-
campus transfer student I real-
ized a few policies that never
seem to be mentioned to the stu-
dent.
If a'student is transferring
from one college or school in the
University to another college or
school in the University he must
be admitted into the school he is
transferring to. This procedure
seems logical. The procedure
that is illogical is the formal dis-
enrollment procedure. The com-
puters at CRISP do not register a
student in a new college or school
just because he has received his
letter of acceptance and sent a
fifty dollar deposit. The computer
requires formal disenrollment
and a statistical change through
LSA. But of course the cross-
campus transfer student isn't
aware of these facts until after he
has waited in line at CRISP, gone
through the terminals and picked
up his computer print out form.
Then he sees that the computer
has registered him in the wrong
school. As a result, the cross-
campus transfer student gets to
CRISP a second time. U of M,

i

you've done it again. I just love
that "True Blue Run-around!"
- Debbie Foran
"
defending butts
To The Daily:
I'd like to speak out in defense
of cigarettes. Recently, the
American Heart Association de-
clared the moral equivalent of
war against the cigarette vending
machines and "seductive ad-
vertising," which theyimplied
lures impressionable teenagers
into the vile habit. Well, if Madi-
son Avenue has lured teenagers
to their first fatal puffs - which I
seriously doubt - so what. They
made the choice; and as it stands
today, at least they had the
choice. The AHA; however,
would like to change that. Their
campaign is to ban cigarettes en-
tirely. That's scary.
Cigarettes are bad, there's no
doubt about it, but banning them
would be worse for two reasons.
First, it would work as well as
prohibition. Second, it involves a
choice which we should be free to
make on our own. Granted, the
AHA can try to influence our de-
cision. But let us make our own
decisions.
-Gary Bosky
woody hater
To The Daily:
Picking up Saturday's Daily I
flipped through it until I spotted
, on the sports page, the article
about Woody Hayes's probation.
Under the terms of the probation
Hayes has to be a good boy or the
Big Ten Commissioner Wayne
Duke will suspend him from
coaching the following two
games.
Well, I'm from Ohio, and off
hand I can think of a number of
Ohio State fans (fanatics) who
would like to suspend Hayes in-
definitely, beginning now. Not for
his bad sportsmanship; however,
but for his bad coaching. That's
right. I don't know whether
Michigan fans realize it or not,
but many Ohio State fans can't
stand Woody, and haven't been
able to tolerate him for years.
Furthermore, this attitude isn't
limited to the grandstands, mem-
bers of his coaching staff have
been reported to have doubts
about his coaching skills.
Despite their discontentment,
these Ohio Staters know Hayes
won't retire until he is ready,
which may be seasons off. In the
meantime, they hope for a future
full of unsuspecting cameramen
and defenseless yard markers.
- Will Bradner
woody fan?
To The Daily:
When I heard of Woody Hayes'
pugilistic display at the U-M-OSU
game, I couldn't help but think of
the dying mastodon. The lum-
bering beast, realizing its days

crushed to see Woody walk
across the field in defeat to shake
Bo's hand? Who would buy a:
bumper sticker that read, "OH-w
IDON'TCAREONEWAYORTHE
OTHERABOUTOHIOSTATE," or:
"Woody is a good sport!" Indeed,
Michigan fans owe a great debt to
Woody. In being the obnoxious:
clown, he has made a convenient:
target for their unleashed emo-
tions.
- Duane Workings
somebody likes us!
To The Daily:
I would like to commend the
Daily on its superb job. A school
newspaper is hard to publish,
considering most of its staff are
students with other things to do
besides writing articles. The
University of Michigan's Daily
has proven to be the best college'
publication in the country. But I
like it for another reason.
I do not like to read. After at-
tending classes in the morning
and studying at the library in the
afternoon, it is nice to come home
to the Daily to inform me of the
news. While dinner is in the over,
I quietly sit down and read the
newspaper. It gives me the hap-
penings in the world and on cam-
pus in a short, precise way. I
think that is why most students
like the Daily. Not many students
have time to listen to the news or
read another newspaper. The
Daily offers them a variety of ar-
ticles that can be absorbed in a
short period of time.
I have attended the University
of Michigan for three years, and I
have subscribed to the Daily each
year. The University of Michigan
is the best university in this coun-
try, and its paper stands no less. I
am proud to be a student here,
and I am proud of the Michigan
Daily.
- Stephanie G. Johnson
south africa
To The Daily:
Recently, the Daily has report-
ed of the atrocities that are oc-
curring in South Africa. I con-
demn these actions by the apar-
theid government. I also urge
that the United States cut all aid
to South Africa. I think, however,
that many Americans are being
hypocritical in their actions
toward South Africa. Although
the racial situation in the United
States is nothing like the con-
dition of blacks in South Africa,
blacks are not being treated
-fairly (equally) in the United
States. Discrimination is evident
everywhere, if not expressed
openly by our institutions many
Americans would like to see the
blacks kept in the ghetto. The
condtion of blacks in America is
subhuman. Many Americans
blind themselves from the black
problem. Sure there have been
some improvements for the
blacks, but, these improvements


I

United Mine
Heads they I
By MICHA EL BECKMAN

One has to question the wisdom of the
United Mine Workers'(UMW) decision to
go on strike at this time, since there ap-
pears to be no way that they can win. And
not only can't they win, but it is likely they
have seriously endangered their welfare
for years to come.
One normally assumes that a union will
only strike if it believes it has a reasonable
chance of making substantial gains. To
have such a chance a union needs two
things: considerable resources to weather
long periods of unemployment, and the
ability to upset the market for the product
it produces by walking out.
SO WHAT EXACTLY is the union trying
to accomplish? UMW president Arnold
riMnr rlaim that thA anal of the strike is

fund. The miners will draw thei
checks in two weeks, and after
income stops. The operators
nounced that all medical funds
been suspended. Further, in Pe
- where the majority of the m
and live - very few, if any, of t
are eligible for unemploymen
Only some will receive food stam
How do the miners intend to
the strike lasts for any period of
only conceivable explanationi
miners expect a= short strike.I
clearly not to be. For in order
swift settlement, there has to b
and immediate demand for th
Obviously coal is a tremendou
ant source of fuel. It is the majo

Workers strike:
ose, tails they lose
r last pay- coal, enough to maintail full production coal operators and major buyers have
that their levels for two to three months. With such geared themselves for a lengthy strike.
have an- massice coal reserves, it will be a long The tremendous reserves attest to this. If
have also time before the strike will have any, the strike were to last less than the expec-
nnsylvania spillout effects into the economy. During ted two or three months, the effects would
iners work this time, the miners aren't making any be disasterous for the coal industry, the
he strikers money. The 160,000 UMW members finan- economy as a whole, and for the miners.
t benefits. cially support roughly 800,000 people. That How can this be? If the strike is settled
nps. adds up to a whole lot of poverty. early, there will be an excess supply of
survive if True, if the strike continued past the coal. In this case, the excess would be
time? The point where the coal reserves have been awesome. This abundance will cause the
is that the exhausted, the economy would be in seri- demand for coal to drop sharply, since
But this is ous trouble. But this wouldn't help the most of the major users of coal, now have
to force a poverty-stricken miners, assuming they all the coal they can use for the next few
e a critical won a compromise settlement consisting months. This, following standard supply
ie product. of restoration of their medical and pension and demand laws, the price of coal will
sly import- funds, a token pay hike and perhaps a frac- drop. The coal industry will be overstock-
)r fuel used tion of back pay. They would still be out at edi with cnal that nn nne wants .S the in-