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Seventy-nine years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
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FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 1970
The 'U' creates
an artificial man
NIGHT EDITOR: ANITA WETTERSTROEM
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People are not
political ideologies
KENT STATE and the U.S. invasion of
Cambodia are only a few weeks old,
but already the turmoil they precipitated
has almost completely disappeared, and
the situation has returned to normal or
at least near normal - the President is
making his televised speeches, and the
majority of the viewing public listen,
agree or disagree, and life goes on.
One of the factors that quickly returned
the situation to normal was the ability of
virtually all University students and
"good Americans," who were so vitally
concerned about the needless and sense-
less deaths at Kent State, to almost com-
pletely ignore the equally contemptible
murders at Jackson State, and in Au-
gusta.
Oh yes, all these people said that the
murders were unfortunate, and that they
shouldn't have happened, but somehow
their great sense of detachment from the
southern tragedies, made the other mur-
ders, a little less important, a little more
tolerable. The reason for this detachment
needn't be explained in great depth
America claims to feel for, and sym-
pathize with the black man, but it always
expresses these supposed feelings in such
a way that it doesn't get too involved, that
Dlown in the
boondocks
THERE'S ALWAYS something so me
place that falls into the "Believe it or
not" category, and this week top honors
go to the state house of Louisiana which
passed a bill Tuesday declaring a person
to be white if he has one-thirty-second or
less of black blood.
Under present Louisiana law, a person
is deemed to be black "if he has a n y
traceable amount" of black blood.
Not secure with that amorphous guide-
line, the legislators decided that a math-
ematical formula would be more comfor-
table. Then they could pin it right down
to the nth degree and decide just who
was what.
It wasn't all that easy; though, with
trouble brewing over just what fraction
of black blood makes one black. The orig-
inal draft of the bill, for example, said
that persons with one-sixteenth b a c k
blood are white. But on second thought,
the legislators agreed that that was just
a little too much black blood to go un-
recorded.
Lest anyone wonder why the legislature
took such pains to define what black is,
the representatives who authored the bill
said it was needed because some state of-
ficials had refused to issue birth certifi-
cates because of fear of designating the
wrong race and being sued.
Oh, perish the thought.
-N. C.
it doesn't cross the barrier that separates
the two worlds.
AND PERHAPS.this is even the problem
with American society itself. Every
individual, and every political or social
group is afraid to cross that barrier that
separates him or them from those next
door, across the street, around the corner
or even across town.
And this American syndrome reflects
itself in politics. The people who opposed
an idea and for that matter the people
who support an idea get together in their
own separate, isolated groups and they
talk over the problem and how they are
going to change it.
THEY NEVER get together with the
other side and talk about an idea.
Although, occasionally they do have to
exchange comments, but only when there
is some crisis-real or phantom-that re-
quires the immediate attention of the
neighbor, city, state or nation. At that
time, he groups exchange caustic remarks
about the wisdom or stupidity of a deci-
sion, hold counter rallies, get rid of their
emotional frustrations and then pack up
and go back to their own little. separate
worlds.
And when they get back home, they ask
themselves why they couldn't convince
the other people that their opinion was
right, and that leads them into a discus-
sion on how to convert people to their
point of view. The discussion lasts until
the next crisis. And, so goes the cycle.
It is as a result of this cycle that polari-
zation has taken place. It is not because
some people are , very radical, and some
are very conservative, but rather because
everyone is basically content to communi-
cate only with those within his own little
niche, somehow suffering under the illu-
sion that mass rallies will attract those
that disagree, and that the rally speakers
will convert them.
So the radicals become "hippie bums"
and the conservatives become "fascists,"
and everyone forgets that both the hip-
pies and the fascists are people, and that
when approached as people, they respond
accordingly.
Somewhere the concept that everyone
is important, and that every person has
feelings has been either lost or ignored.
And, people have become political ideolo-
gies with no feelings, and without the
ability to communicate with, or persuade
those that disagree with them.
T HIS IS what happened after Cambodia
and Kent State. The campuses called
the National Guard "pigs," the National
Guard called the students "hippie freaks,"
and both sides stood fast.
The same thing happened after Cam-
bodia, and will continue happening in the
same manner until people realize that
there is no way that you can convince the
other side that you are right until you
cross the barrier and try to talk to them
like they are people, and not political
ideologies.
I
- %
- would like to apologize for
bums students!"
"The vice president and
calling you I
By CARLA RAPOPORT
June 5, 1993
UNIVERSITY SCIENTISTS announced yesterday they have discovered
a method for the artificial synthesis of the human being.
This new process for the production of man opens the final stage
of a genetic revolution begun in 1970 when a group of Wisconsin
scientists announced the creation of a manmade gene.
The team of scientists, headed by Nobel Prize winner, Peter Denton,
will plan the implementation of their process during the next few
weeks.
MAKING A RARE PERSONAL appearance. President Robben
Fleming commented yesterday on the far-reaching implications of this
discovery.
"I am pleased and proud with this unprecidented accomplishment.
I again reiterate my firm and unyielding opinion that new discoveries
are thoroughly beneficial and undeniably worthwhile to the whole
University and the entire nation."
After Fleming. Director of University Relations Richard Feldman
quickly announced to the press that congratulatory note to the Uni-
versity had been received from all the major heads of states, even the
Soviet Union,
Today, national figures-recovered from their initial amazement
at the thought of the artificial production of men-regained their
voices and began to express many questions and opinions as to the
implications and possible regulations for manmade men.
A SPOKESMAN FOR HUMAN Equality-an national organization
formed after Chicago was burned to the ground in 1975-said in a
television interview, "Under no circumstances should a small group
of scientists at the University of Michigan be allowed to continue
their Franken Steinian experiments without governmental regulations.
"The'American people must be made to realize that this discovery
is not just another transplant, rather, it has the possibilities for cre-
ating an entire race. And this race may have any characteristics that
the scientists at the University decide to give it. Scientific research of
this caliber must be thought out and discussed by a group representing
all American people."
Members of this organization pressed unsuccessfully, in 1975-76, to
have scientific research on the life process as well as military research
regulated in part by board of concerned government persons and well
publicized.
A member of the University Board of Scientific Research at the
University in an afternoon statement answered the above statement.
e 7, "Human Equality's emotional appeal has no firm foundation," he
said. "Scientists at this University as well as others have been the main
reason for the present eradiction of all disease with the exception of
aith a stomach disease found in Appalachia and parts of the South which
have evaded their efforts. The death rate of the country has decreased
astonishly."
ims He continued, "If they think the government should control some-
thing perhaps you should direct its attention to the over population
problem which is plaguing our nation.
ams
es in "SCIENCE HAS DISCOVERED prefabrication of nearly every
at vegetable and fruit. It stands by its moral convictions as shown by
and scientists large contribution last year to the Former Farmers of
Mc- America Foundation.
the "The weapons and materials our Military Research department
who has developed in the last twenty years have been the major bolster
do and strength behind our country's troops in Vietnam, Venezusela, Laos,
nion Thailand, Greenland, and Georgia (which seceeded in 1985), to name
our a few,"I
1.00. "This new discovery is another indication of the nation's scientists
geto strong commitment to the betterment of mankind," he concluded.
These views and others will be studied by a newly appointed presi-
acko dential commission on the artificial man. The committee is expected to
release its preliminary reports by spring of 1995.
I
Letters to the Editor
High ideals?
To the Editor:
YOUR READERS MAY wish to
be brought up to date on the stat-
us of the fraternity houseiat Hill
and Onondaga and the city's at-
tempt to buy it as a site for public
housing apartments. They may re-
call that the house was bought
hurriedly, by a consortium headed
by Prof. Harvey Brazer while the
city was in the last stages of ne-
gotiation.
The status right now is quo as
it was a month ago. Brazer's
neighbors who invested in the
group seem to be getting impa-
tient for the city to sue to con-
demn the property, so that they
can be bailed out for their full
$85,000 purchase price. The city
seems to be getting impatient for
Brazer and t h e group's lawyer,
George Wahr Sallade, to announce
what generous gesture they will
m a k e so the property may be
economically u s e d for a small,
well-designed public housing com-
plex.
In spite of the public-spirited
verbiage in which their news re-
leases were stated, I became con-
vinced after private conversations
with Sallade and Mrs. Brazerthat
their motives were snobbish and
racist - they just didn't want
the city moving a lot of p o o r
blacks into their fancy-neighbor-
hood. I denounced theiractions in
statements to t he City Council
and the news media.
Now that a month has gone by
without the generous gesture, I
am inviting all members of the
University and city community
who wish to discuss what further
action should be taken to meet at
my apartment, 721 South Forest,
on this Sunday evening, Jun
at 8 p.m.
-Prof. Max Shain
School of Public He
June 2
Telegra
To the Editor:
WE SENT THREE telegr
this week to our representativ
Washington - o n e to yen,
Hart, one to Senator Griffin,
one to Congressman Esch ur
them to support the Hatfield-
Govern Amendment to End
War. We now ask everyone
opposes this senseless war to
the same, A personal opi:
message of 15 words plus yt
name and address only costs $
Our Congress is finally tryin
end the war. It needs your]
now.
-Joe and
May 14
Jo Ellen Iva
Staying nubile
in Never-Never
-A LEXA CANADY
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Kathrin Perutz, BEYOND THE
LOOKING GLASS: AMERICA'S
BEAUTY CULTURE, Morrow
and Co., $7.95.
By MARCY ABRAMSON
Perhaps the strangest thing
about this book is Miss Perutz's
own overt narcissism; she has won
the game and she wants everyone
to know it. When she went to
famed hairdresser Kenneth for a
facial, the operator peered at her
through two sets of magnifying
glasses and asked her to take off
her eyelashes-but they were, Eu-
reka!, her real lashes. She began
dying her hair platinum at an
early age and became a blonde
bombshell with a 42-inch bust.
The male world stopped for her.
After her novels were published,
she became more sedate, but
maintained the same figure as
Jean Shrimpton; when she went
to a beauty spa, everyone agreed
that she was the most beautiful
woman there (until they decided
she must be black).
Honestly enough, Miss Perutz
thus admits to a strange love-hate
relationship with America's beauty
culture, and her new book, Be-
yond the Looking Glass, is accord-
ingly a confusing cross between
The cartoon illustrating this
review is by Tomi Ungerer,
whose very, very strange
graphics have been recently
collected and published by
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
(S6.95) under the title TOMI
UNGERER'S COMPROMISES.
expose and paean. Although nov-
elist Perutz devotes several pas-
sages to her deep love of language
and poetry, she nevertheless de-
Glares, "The beauty culture has
rescued me from self-hatred more
often than poetry or philosophy;
it is a part of my growing up and
Americanization."
Beyond the Looking Glass takes
times even as shocking as the
Morrow book-j acketeer promises.
Though a good deal here is also
routine - everyone knows women
buy a lot of eye make-up - the
facts, especially about cosmetic
surgery, can be astonishing, and
Beyond the Looking Glass will
probably become a source book on
the subject (it is conveniently in-
dexed).
But what Miss Perutz fails to
provide is a real analysis of this
phenomenon and its consequence
in American life. She recognizes
t h a t Americans manufacture
beauty in order to defy death, win
love, and get rich, yet she does
not deal with physical and psy-
chological consequences of the
beauty culture in any meaningful
way. For example, Miss Perutz
reports a suicide of teen-age twin
sisters who never found out that
their flat chests could be remade
with silicone, but she does not go
further to seek out psychological
data on the frequency and serious-
ness of such disorders in adoles-
cents-which I suspect are severe.
The painful question of con-
sumer safety is not one for a de-
votee such as Miss Perutz, unless
perhaps she simply believes as-
surances of chief chemists at lead-
ing cosmetic companies. Unfort-
unately, her assertion that con-
sumers "can all buy with assur-
ance that the product is safe"
was belied just last week when
federal authorities revealed an in-
credibly high : rate of bacterial
contamination in many cosmetic
products on the market. Some
products were found toxic enough
to kill any toddler who got into
mama's supply, although the cos-
metics effected only an infection
in adults.
Miss Perutz's book is oriented
predominantly toward the upper
class who Can afford beauty spas,
face lifts, and silicone implants;
she does not consider the frustra-
tion of those who grow old and
are left behind by the media; she
does not deign to investigate
whether or how such women are
able to adjust and to come to a
more satisfactory modus vivendi
search for real alternatives to the
present culture. Age is out; wrink-
les are ugly. Beauty therapy of-
fers hope for some mental patients
and criminals-what matter that
it may have created more ills than
it will ever cure? Although Miss
Perutz mentions Women's Libera-
tion here and there, she does not
interview any women who might
offer a more humane and realistic
concept of "beauty."
Some of Miss Perutz's report is
incisive, however. She gives an
exact portrait of the vapid lives
of many New York upper class
women who fill five days a week
with beauty culture-from fit-
tings at the eyelash salon to sit-
tings at the reducing studio. She
retells every moment of her stay
at a beauty spa, including the
emptiness of many of the women
and of their intolerance when
they suspect that she may be a
black passing for white. Her in-
terviews well reveal the callous-
ness of certain famous plastic sur-
geons out to make a fortune.
Miss Perutz accepts the need
Land
for women -like herself - to go
through six-hour ordeals of burn-
ing scalp and bleeding sores to
straighten and tint hair. She
speaks radiantly of the tremen-
dous change breast surgery has
made for some women-usually
finding them husbands.
She never considers, of course,
the basic question of the relega-
tion of women to housewife and
sex object, and the use of the
beauty culture to keep women in
their subservient position. Arti-
ficial social values of "masculine"
and "femine" are accepted by Miss
Perutz, who writes of the "femini-
zation of society" which leads "to
interest in the ephemeral."
In sum then, her portrait is one-
sided, for there are many more
ways of looking at beauty than
offered by Vogue or Miss America.
Perhaps Miss Perutz has simply
served as an unwilling diagnos-
tician; others will have to come
forth to restore belief in the in-
nate human, personal beauty
which is, indeed, more than mas-
cara deep.
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