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Eighty-Seven Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Snowbound
in
New
Mexico
Wednesday, February 2, 1977
News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Congressional conscience
could curtail cash cabals,
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE Tip O'- meribers were timid almost to the
Neilland some other representa- point of silence. Why? Wild later said
tives with integrity have turned their he had given money to every mem-
eyes to the grave problem of Con- ber of the committee but chairman
gressional accountability. With the Sam Ervin.
subcommittee on financial account- This is how deep and insidious
ability's recommendation of a strong the danger is. The new plan to com-
new ethics code, Congress has moved bat it seems barely enough. Accord-
to thwart the poison that eats at ing to. Fred Wertheimer, vice-presi-
its own insides, dent of Common Cause, "This is a
tough package that does the job. It's
The situation is paradoxical, of for real. It's comprehensive. It deals
course; the proposed bill will be op- with the major problem areas, the
posed by many representatives who hidden underground." We hope ,so.
benefit from undisclosed private in- But the bill will soon hit the House
come, some of it shady. But it is floor, where diluting amendments
such income, taken without ethical may steal its potency.
considerations, which threatens to And there are problems. Congress-
strip Congress of the power and pres- man Morris Udall (D-Ariz.) said that
tige its members seek so hungrily. the bill, by limiting honorarium fees
Representatives and senators must for speeches but ignoring representa-
realize that most of the nation is tives' stock holdings, favors rich rep-
either laughing or shitting in their resentatives and puts the screws to
direction. The republic is based upon the poor ones. Though the bill pro-
some measure of faith in the repre- vides for diclosure of stock holdings,
sentative system, and the utter con- it can do nothing to cut them back:
tempt with which most citizens re- Without such a curb, 'corporate fi-
gard office-holders is about to ruin nance is fairly certain to keep a
whatever faith there is left. hand on the strings of congressional
influence.
NEAR THE END of the Senate Wa-
N tergate hearings in 1973, Claude O THE HOUSE DEMOCRATS who
Wild, Jr., Gulf Oil's chief lobbyist, have created the bill, we say: good
came before the committee. A man job, but make it better. To the Sen-
intimately familiar with the role of ate, we urge the same course. It
corporate money in government sat should have been taken earlier, but
before them, and the committee it must be taken now.
D t
DiXon's derogatory dig
demands direct dismissal
By JEFFREY SELBST
First of two parts
CLAUDIA AND I pulled into Amarillo, Texas, at about
4:00 in the afternoon. We were just passing
through, and my first impression was that it wasn't
much of a town. My second impression merely con-
firmed the first.
We were doing our best to avoid the much-dreaded
impending blizard. Everyone saw it coming, and had
warned us in dire tones. This was the second day of our
driving trip - a headlong dash to California. The
first night had been spent outside of Kansas City
with my brother. He'd had his fun, smirking about
the 70 degree weather that had preceded us by about
a week and a half. But since we left Michigan, skies
had been clear, and we were getting cocky.
Our plans that day were to get to Alburquerque by
nightfall. Not an unreasonable expectation, consid-
ering the miles and all. Amarillo to us was one of those
mile-marking towns. It was a sold, breezy afternoon,
but skies were calm.
EVERYTHING went fine for about, ten miles; we
were buzing along, listening to the tapes we had
recorded before the trip, whentsuddenly - very sud-
denly - the snow started to fall. And fall.
And fall. I was getting a litle panicked, but Claudia
was taking it all rather well. She was sleeping. But
the Macks and the semis were blowing us off the road.
Also they kicked snow up onto the windshield and
made dit difficult to see. After two hours of this, I was
ready to null over and wait it'out.
But then the skies cleared again, and the snow was
gone. This was the Texas I always wanted to see -
sagebrush! Doggies! Tacky litle towns with weather
beaten porches - Auntie M doing her knitting outside.
That was Texas,.I
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SHADES OF EARL BUTZ!
At a 'recent appearance before an
industry group, Federal Trade Com-
missioner Paul Dixon called consum-
er advocate Ralph Nader "a son of
a bitch and a dirty Arab." I
That he called Nader a "son of
a bitch" is not important. It shows
only that he is a childish inarticu-
late, and possesses a noticeable tem-
per. But Dixon's remark about Na-
der's ethnic background is inexcus-
able.
The last President allowed his ag-
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Editorial Staff
Co-Editors-in-Chief
ANN MARIE LIPINSKI..............JIM TOBIN
KEN PARSIGIAN .............Editorial Director
Managing Editors
JAY LEVIN, GEORGE LOBSENZ,
MIKE NORTON, MARGARET YAO
LOIS JOSIMOVICH........... Art Editor
Magazine Editors
SUSAN ADES..............ELAINE FLETCHER
Photography Staff,
PAULINE LUBENS ..........Chief Photographer
ALAN BILINSKY ................. Picture Editor
BRAD BENJAMIN.......... Staff Photographer
ANDY FREEBERG..........Staff Photographer
CHRISTINA SCHNEIDER .... Staff Photographer
Sports Staff
Bill Stieg . ............... ....... Sports Editor
Rich Lerner ...Executive Sports Editor
Andy Glazer........... Managing Sports Editor
Rick Bonino.Associate Sports Editor
NIGHT EDITORS: Tom Cameron, Enid Goldman,
Kathy Henneghan, Scott Lewis, Rick Maddock,
Bob Miller, John Niemeyer, Mark Whitney.
STAFF WRITERS: Leslie Brown, Tom Cameron,
Ernie Dunbar, Henry Engelhardt, Rob Evan,
Jeff Frank, Cindy Gatziolis, Enid Goldman,
Mike Halpin, Kathy Henneghan, Geoff Larcom,
Scott Lewis, Don MacLachlan, Rick Maddock,
Brian Martin, Bob Miller, Brian Miller, Billy
Neff, John Niemeyer, Eric Olson, Dan Perrin,
Dave Renbarger, Pat Rode, Cub Schwartz,
Errol Shifman, Tom Shine, Jamie Turner, Mark
Whitney, Greg Zott.
Business Staff
Deborah Dreyfuss . ........... Business Manager
Kathleen Mulhern ... Assistant Adv. Coordinator
David Harlan ...............Finance iManager
Don Simpson ..................Sales Manager
Pete Peterson ..........,Advertising Coordinator
Cassle St. Clair ............Circulation Manager
Beth Stratiord............Circulation Director
riculture secretary to slur the blacks,
and his head of the joint chiefs of
staff to slander the Jews, now it ap-
pears that Jimmy Carter - the man
who promised to be a new type of
leader - is willing to let this same
type of bigotry go unpunished.
Carter called for the ouster ofdbothj
Earl Butz and' Gen. Brown when he
was just a candidate for the presi-
dency, so why hasn't he taken thej
appropriate actions now that he oc-
cupies the' Oval Office?
The answer is that our new Presi-
dent, like so,,many other Americans,
is either indifferent or hostile to-
ward Arabs.
Because of this country's stand on
the Mid-east situation, Arabs havej
gotten a bad name. The Jews arej
an oppressed people and not to be
slandered, the'blacks are an oppres-
sed people and not to be slurred, yet
the Arabs are the bad guys so some-
how it's alright if they are the butt
of some derogatory remark. What
kind of perversion of logic is that?
Racism is racism regardless of the
ethnic group involved, and Dixon's
remark is unpardonable. Presently,
we are seeking a peaceful solution
to the Mid-east situation, yet how
can we expect the Arab nations to
believe that our motives are moral
and honest when we allow such bla-
tant bigotry in our federal govern-
ment to go unpunished?
That a man like Dixon is permit-
ted to slander Ralph Nader - a cru-
sader for the right of all people -
and remain in office is an indica-
tion of nothing less than a total
insensitivity to the Arab people on
the part of the present adIpinistra-
tion. It is Jimmy Carter's duty to
dismiss Dixon as swiftly as possible,
and it Is the duty of the American
people to recognize racism for the
ugly monster that it is, no matter
which race is involved,
BUT NOT FOR long. We stopped to gas up in a little
town ca'led Tucumcari. N.M., at a quaintlittle truck
s op. The proprietor looked about 110. I pulled up to
the pumn - now, granted it was a bitter cold evening,
but he didn't make a move.
So I got out of the car. went into the station, and
asked him to fill up the car. Relucantly he followed me
outside. When he was finished, he came up to the
window with a windshield rag. "Clean your headlights,
sir?" he quavered. I blinked. "What?" But he was
already gone. I must say, he polished them to gleaming
glory. I still couldn't see out the windshield. Strange na-
tive customs.
Unfortunatelv, it had bepn'n to snow again rather gent-
ly. Not so you'd notice. We started to drive; Claudia
was at the wheel.
I PUT THE tape recorder on. Which promptly died.
So we put the car radio on. A fairly good idea, be-
case i+ would have weather reports. only we couldn't
find any.
Besides, we didn't need any. Slowly every vestige of
navebent disanneared beneath the car, to be replaced
by a solid sheet of snow and ice. We debated the wis-
dom of ,j"st pulling over at the next exit and finding
a no'el. But we though+ that the snow might disappear
again, as after Amarillo, but we were fooled.
A sign by the road: "Elevation: 9,441 feet."
It was clearly getting treacherous now, but there were
no side exits with gas sta'ions. We couldn't even get
off to turn around. Well, I thought grimly, this is a
blizzard.
CLAUDIA SAID brightly, "At least it'll be worse
at home." (It was - this was the second week of
January.)
In the meantime, the snow wasn't letting up.
We progressed along at 25 or 30 miles per hour for
some time, and then it happened.
The road had two steep drops on either side, a semi
came jackknifing up beside us, we' lost the road-
"DOWNSHIFT!" I hollered from the back seat.
Claudia jammed her foot on the break as she did so--
and that was it - across the road, back, across again,
down - now near the brink, across the highway -
out of control-
We came to a shuddering halt in a snowbank. Claudia
froze. The car was stalled and the radio was off. Very
quiet. We sat watching the snowflakes go through the
black.
"People can't freeze to death .in a car, can they?"
she asked.
I shrugged. "I don't see why not."p
SOMEHOW I coaxed the car back to life. I took over
the wheel, and vowed to turn off at the next gas
station I saw. It was about three minutes to eight.
There was an exit sign pointing. to a virtually non-
existent town of Mulagro, where there was a gas sta-
tion/souvenir shop/snack bar. We pulled off, as Claudia
said, "At least to get coffee."
When we entered the coffee shop, giggling madly, I
noticed a number of people milling about. Pface does
a hell of a business, I whispered.
We got coffee, and asked the proprietress how far to
the next motel. "Moriarity," she said. "44 miles."
"44 MORE MILES of this?" I couldn't believe it.
"Oh, don't worry," one man said. "You couldn't do it
if you wanted to. State's closed off the highway in front
of us altogether.
That's when I noticed that several had unrolled sleep-
ing bags on the floor.
A world around. Another denim-dressed man came
through the door behind me. "Road's just been closed
back Texas way," he announced as he stomped his
snow-covered feet.
Snowbound in Milagro, New Mexico. What a treat.
WE SETTLED in, brought blankets and pillows
from the car - I got a very bad novel that I had
been wanting to start, Claudia got her knitting - and
we sat on the floor.
There was a family on its way to Los Angeles next
to us. The lady was sitting glumly, smoking cigaretfe
after cigarette, while her three blonde children were
sitting peacefully on the floor. This had been their
first driving trip out to see family in Pennsylvania
over Christmas. How long had she been here, I
asked. Since five-thirty.-
A blonde bearded college-type youth was sitting near-
by. From Hammond, Indiana, he was on his way to the
University of Arizona at Tempe. A two-day drive;
spent the night before in a town outside Oklahoma City;
very amusing, he said, the town hadn't even yet hit
the 60's - drive-in res'aurant girls on roller skates -
Since 3 p.m. Almost wiped his car out, too. Same
stretch of road.
The souvenir shop's walls were lined with schlock
goodies. Fake Aztec style scissors, engraved plaques
with the "sayings that Middle America loves best" on
them, cribbage boards, shot glasses with wooden
trays, Bible covers with pictures of Christ on them.
I just wanted to scream.
AN AESTHETE from Long Beach, Calif. spoke up.
"Isn't this too much?" he said. "Snowbound? Truck
stop? Niew Mexico, It's Inge. That's what! Bus stop!"
"How true," said the lady from L.A. "And I'm
Marilyn Monroe."
There was a phone booth about a hundred yards
outside the door, so to relieve some of the boredom, I
tried to call home. No one was home. Claudia called
home, and found out that the New Mexico weather was
on the news.
I called a friend in Ann Arbor. The 11 o'clock news
was on and Stephen told me that San Francisco - our
ultimate destina'ion - had just been hit by earth-
quakes. )
"Calm down, you sound hysterical," he counseled.
"I'M ON TOP of a mountain in New Mexico with
no place to go but down, the snow is drifting to four feet
everywhere, it's cold, and I may be in this truck
stop for the next two weeks. DO YOU EXPECT ME TO
BE RATIONAL?"
We did get out, of course. Around midnight, the
roads were pronounced hazardous but passable, and we
took off for Albuquerque. At 30 miles per hour, we
made it at about 3 o'clock. We stopped at a Howard
Johnson's.
As Claudia sat waiting in the dining room for our
lumpen pancakes to arrive, I went to talk to the motel
desk clerk - a rude, pimply young man who had
more maps than brains.
"DO YOU MEAN you want to leave here?" he asked
in response to my queries.
"Well," I said pleasantly, "I'm going to." Pause.
"How long until the road through Flagstaff is clear?"
"Oh, you couldn't even think about leaving until four
p.m. tomorrow," he said, "but Flagstaff won't be clear
for days. If it's chilly here," (a safe assumption, I
conceded), "then it'll be colder than snot in Flag-
staff!" he laughed uproariously. Noting my failure, t1
smile, he said, pityingly, "You're from back East,
aren't you?"
The snow was piling higher.
NEXT: EATEN BY CANNABALISTIC
MEXICAN BANDITS.
PERSPECTIVTE
By W. L. SCHELLER
"THE PARTICIPATING STATES will respect
human rights and fundamental freedoms,
including the freedom of thought, conscience,
religion or belief, for all without distinction
as to race, sex, language or religion.
Within this framework the participating
states will recognize and respect the freedom
of the individual to profess and practice alone
or in community with others, religion or be-
lief acting in accordance with the dictates of
his own conscience." - Helsinki Aug. 1, 1975
These tw paragraphs are taken from the
human rights section of the "Helsinki agree-
ment." This summer a conference will be held
in Belgrade, Yugoslavia to review and evalu-
ate progress made since that agreement was
signed in 1975. Currently purges and repres-
sion are taking place in East Germany, the
Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia against peo-
ple in those countries who believe the docu-
ment their leaders signed.
East Germany has been waging a cam-
paign against those who are now seeking emi-
gration to the west. East Germans have be-
come increasingly dissatisfied with their cap-
tivity behind the Berlin wall. One of their'most
recent ploys was to station police outside the
West German diplomatic mission in 'East Ber-
lin. There they checked the identity cards of
all who wanted to enter the building. East
Germans were told that they were not allowed
to enter and sent away.
THE SOVIET UNION continues to wage
it's campaign against dissidents within Rus-
sia. On Tuesday, January twenty-fifth Andre
Sakharov was given a stern warning by the
Soviet authorities. Sakharov, noted physicist
and father of the Russian hydrogen bomb, had
implicated the KGB, the Russian secret police,
in the bombing of a Moscow subway. The au-
thorities have been trying to blame the bomb-
ings on dissidents. According to Amnesty In-
ternational at least 90 dissidentsdhave been con-
victed since the Helsinki accord.
By far the greatest current purge going on
in eastern Europe is in Czechoslovakia. A few
weeks ago a petition for human rights, titled
"Charter 77," was .signed by several prominent
Czechs and published in the west. Almost im-
mediately a campaign against the signers went
into affect. One man Pavel Kohout, whose play
."Poor Murderer" recently completed a run on
broadway, was arrested and his apartment
searcheq in the presence of a reporter for "The
New York Times." Kohout's wife had been drag-
ged into a police car and taen away that
morning. Current rumor has it that Czecho-
slovakia may begin expelling some of it's diTsi-
dents,
These actions are hardly in keeping with
... the freedom of the individual to profess ...
in accordance with the dictates of his own con-
science." It is difficult to imagine any more
blatent violations of that agreement than what
is taking place in these three countries.
This is but a brief sketch of what has been
going on recently behind the iron curtain. One
of the most important questions placed be-
fore the Carter Administration is that dealing
with the direction of our foreign policy. Car-
ter has issued two statements on the subject
of these purges, but as yet there have been
no constructive results. The people of eastern
Europe must not be forgotten in our foreign
policy, nor should we jeopardize all that we've
worked for in detente. In my next two col-
umns I hope to look a bit deeper into what
is transpiring there and what course United
States policy toward eastern Europe should
take.
CarterpadnDobedsrmntn
i oBy CAROLE QUATTRO privileged usually submitted only to. oth'er inj ustice against the people he
TIMMY CARTER claims to be a man
of the people, and it would be re-
freshing if this proved true. That is
why the president's recent amnesty
proposal is such a dissappointment.
During the campaign, Carter prom-
ised a blanket amnesty "for those
who violated the - Selective Service
laws." Under this plan, those who
failed to register, submit for induc-
tion, or fled the country to avoid the
draft would be granted complete am-
nesty.
Men who deserted the armed
forces after enlistment or induction,
however, would not be treated so
gently. Desertion cases, said Carter,
"should be handled on an individual
basis in accordance with our nation's
system of military justice."
In essence, deserters would not be
given a fair chance at receiving a
pardon at all, since it is unlikely the
military would be understanding or
lenient in the matter.
WHAT MAKES THE 'evader' and
'deserter' distinction even more un-
discover their abhorrance to the war
later. The difference here is merely
timing - both evaders and desert-
ers were protesting a war now con-
sidered an atrocity.
Because the evaders were more
aware and better equipped into re-
sisting the draft whereas the poor
did not have' the access, the presi-
dent is allowing them to return.1
HE IS IN FACT perpetrating an-
claims to represent.
By the pardon, Carter is saying
that the day has arrived to admit
our mistakes of the Vietnam con-
flict.
Yet, why doesn't he make the am-
nesty complete; why not end this
bleak reminder now, instead of al-
lowing just one more injustice to
drag on as a consequence of that
war?
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