Friday, May 10, 1974
THIE MICHIGAN DAILY
Page Three
Buckley talks to Flint grads
'U' senior goes
home after 45
day con ordeal
University senior Michael Kubinski re-
turned home yesterday after a 45-day
ordeal during which he was led across
the country as the victim of a bizarre
confidence game.
Kubingki, president of Sigma Chi fra-
ternity and an honors student due to
graduate last weekend, had been bilked
out of more than $3,000 before police
Wednesday arrested the conwoman, who
had led him on a wild goose chase in-
volving tales of national security and
political intrigue, in Arlington, Va.
AT THE TIME authorities took the
pair into custody, Kubinski was reported
in good physical condition but "emotin-
ally upset." He is now "resting" at his
Center Line, Mich. home, his brother
Edward said last night.
"Mike is all riight but very tired," Ed-
ward said. "We haven't talked much
about the incident." He added "it would
be up to Mike to decide if he wants to
talk about it."
The conwoman, Barbara Merrella, has
flim - flammed nearly a dozen college
students since she escaped from a Colo-
rado prison over a year ago.
MERRELLA, a heavy-set 27-year-old,
uses a complex, almost unbelievable
scheme in which she leads her victims
around the country to attend a series of
nonexistent meetings allegedly of vital
national importance.
In doing so, she travels at the victim's
expense but receives little else in the
way of material gain. Merrella has a
prior record of 17 arrests and seven con-
victions on various fraud charges.
Even after Kubinski's safe return, the
police are at a loss to explain why her
confidence game has been such a suc-
cess.
By CHERYL PILATE
SpecialTa The Daily
FLINT - National Review Editor and
noted political columnist William Buck-
ley delivered a rambling 20 minute
speech last night as the featured guest
speaker at the University's Flint cam-
p-is commencement ceremony.
Speaking to 179 attentive graduates,
the well-known conservative writer cov-
ered a wide variety of topics ranging
from Lyndon Johnson to the Almighty
Redeemer.
HE ENCOURAGED the graduates to
"fuse rationalism with utopia" hecause
"depending on utopian desires alone
cold only result in disappointment."
His occasional oblique references to
the corruption of the office of the presi-
dency were well received by the
audience.
Declaring his disenchantment with
Johnson's "Great Society" and the Nix-
on administration, Buckley said, "The
President whose ascendancy was hailed
as a return to order after the previous
ineffective administration has been be-
leagored by the malfeasance of those
around him. The American public has
ssffered a great disillusionment and
they are justifiably angry."
Taking off on a tangent, Buckley re-
fered to his profound belief in the powers
of religion.
"I KNOW MY Redeemer lives," he
decllred. "This faith is a source of
strength to nse."
Occasionally, Buckley deviated from
his serious philosophical discourse in an
attempt to inject a light-hearted tone
into his address.
"This is not a world of tranquitlty,"
he said. "However, it is unlikely that
the editors of Readers Digest are moon-
lighting at an underground paper."
Switching back to a more serious tone
he added, "But I do not believe that it
is inconceivable that the President of
the United States will be removed from
office."
DESPITE THE occasional light re-
marks, pessimism characterized most
of Buckley's address.
"If your concerns are like mine," he
told the graduates, "you worry if the
spirit can be stabilized without being
castrated. I worry because so many of
as believe ourselves powerless to dis-
possess ourselves of our contemporary
,,.uclams."
Reminiscing on the politically turbu-
lent 60's, he concluded by blaming the
disappointment and disillusionment of
recent years on the ideological "we will
overcome" 'attitude of youth.
Although Buckley's speech did not
lavish praise on the graduates, they ap-
plauded vigorously at the end of his
address.
Intreduced to the audience as "an art-
ist of the language," Buckley is an
author of two books and serves as host
of the television program Firing Line.
Ar rnoto
THE MAN who claims to be the world's foremost expert on cursing, Dr. Rein'
hold Aman, leans on a stack of foreign language works that he examines in his
study of swearing in different languages and cultures. Aman takes pleasure
in trying to figure out what expletives have been deleted from the Watergate
transcripts.
Dir ty word expert 'eats up'
Nixon tascript explei ves
MILWAUKEE (fM - Dr. Reinhold steam, to keep from getting ulcers and on ethnic slurs, he said.
Aman takes a different view of the Wat- from keeping frustrations bottled up in- Americans are among the least re-
ergate transcripts than the pastors and side," said Aman. fined cussers, largely because their pro-
politicians who have criticized President "It should be used properly," he cau- fane vocabulary is 25 or fewer words,
Nixon for the salty language used in the tioned, adding that most people don't Aman said.
White House, appreciate the finer points of cursing. Among his favorites curses are Yid-
"I just eat it up," said Aman, a pro- He said the unsophisticated curser dish's "May all your teeth but one fall
fessor of medieval German literature aims insults at a foe's physical charac- out so you can get a toothache," the
and an expert an swearing who can give teristics rather than gauging his cultural rhymed insults of the Turks and the sing-
expletivesin dan and thousands of other and educational background before us- ing exchanges between Eskimoes.
AMAN, who teaches at the University ing the verbal rapier. "Tell me what swear words you use
of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, sees swearing ONLY A LOW-BROW swearer relies and I will tell you who you are," he said.
as a sasay ~me hm an~s s nos stam -,._..."..
as a necessary means of letting oft steam
in almost every language.
"I don't advocate swearing," he said.
"I don't encourage my children or stu-
dents to swear. I personally swear be-
cause there are so many things that
bug me. That's why everyone swears,
and almost everyone does."
Far from being shocked at the lan-
guage, in the White House transcripts,
Aman finds it lacking in the very words
he's interested in.
"MOST OF THE time they are omit-
ted, although you can sometimes pre-
dict what - should be there," he said,
"I've been sort of trying to fill in what
it can be.
"I wish I could get all the expletives.
That would be lite winning at a lottery
or something"
Aman, 38, has plenty of experience in
dealing with non-deleted .expletives. He
has published several scholarly works on
profanity patterns throughout the world
and compiled dictionaries of cusswords
to help explain the background and
meaning of curses.
"SWEARING is a means of letting off
Fish story: Shoppers decry
sale of alleged dolphin meat
By STEPHEN HERSH
Patrons of the local Kroger super-
market at the Westgate shopping center
the other day were incensed at discover-
ing packages of food labeled as "dolphin"
meat. They complained bitterly of the
barbarity involved in selling such pro-
duce.
Barbarity would be the right word if
the flesh in question were that of the
mammal that scientists are finding to be
in some ways as least as intelligent as
humans,
DOLPHIN LANGUAGE is so complex
that people have not as yet been able to
deciper it.
Dolphins can learn to speak a little
English. In laboratories they have been
taught to say such words as "hello," and
those that hang around docks can some-
times be heard uttering dirty words
picked up from dock workers.
Margaret Howe, a marine scientist,
taught a dolphin to retrieve whichever
of five differently colored balls thrown
into his tank that she indicated verbally.
D u r in g one exhibition she shouted,
"Peter, get the orange ball." But Peter
retrieved the blue ball. So she yelled,
"Peter, get the orange ball" And ap-
parently because Peter was bored with
the game and wanted to be jive, he re-
trieved the three other balls and refused
to get the orange one.
DOLPHIN MEAT sold at Kroger's?
Eating the flesh of an animal who has
a sense of the absurd is serious business.
The consumption of dolphin should per-
haps be confined to situations where the
Grim Reaper, in the avatar of starvation,
is looking one straight in the eye. Some
philosophers have condoned even the
consumption of human flesh in these
situations.
It is said that once a person acquires a
taste for human meat, no other food is
quite satisfying. A taste for dolphin
could carry with it the same difficulty,
although this may be the case only for
dolphins who acquire a taste for dolphin.
The Standard Fish Market in Detroit,
which supplies Kroger's with its fish,
offered assurances that the product
which the store labels as "dolphin" is
See STORE, Page 13