Page 4-Wednesday, March 26, 1980-The Michigan Daily Greeks are Greek to this Greek bar- It really waste innocent mistake. I read in the paper that a local bar was having a "Greek Night" last Thursday. Hell, I thought, time to meet some nice Greek girls. So I called my friends Stavros and Demetrios, and we headed out. We faced trouble from the start. The bouncer asked us if we were Greek. We answered in the affirmative. He eye us suspiciously, so I gave him a few lines of Greek. He eyed us with more I(AT& suspicion. He called the other bouncer over, who whispered something in his ear. "WHERE ARE your baseball caps?" he asked. "Beg your pardon?" "All Greeks wear baseball caps," ex- plained the bouncer. "Some have 20 or 30 dif- ferent ones." News to me, I thought. So after useless bickering, we paid the full price, sat down at the table, and hailed our waitress. Four women approached the vacant table next to us. They wore cordurays or Levi's, and shirts with buttoned-down collars. A necklace bounced daintily from each of their necks and each sported a monogrammed sweater of a dif- ferent color. I always knew sororities bred diversity. We watched with interest. "CAN YOU BELIEVE Laurie?" asked the blue sweater. "She's going out with a... "and here she leaned over the table and whispered, "an Alpha Nu." Mouths dropped in unison. "Oh, God," moaned the rust sweater. "Yucchh!" exclaimed the kelly-green sweater. "How disgusting," said the pink sweater. "I mean, a Delta Phi, yeah, but an Alpha Nu? Alpha Nus didn't even have an IM football team!" "Here's more gossip," said the blue sweater. "You remember Jim, that Beta Chi who always dated the Sigma Beta at the same time he was going out with two Omega Alphas? Well, he's dating a Zeta Zeta now." "I'M LIKE, REALLY bummed," sighed the pink sweater. "That's almost as bad as what happened to that Gamma Kappa. Did you hear? They found out her father makes less than $42,500 a year." "You're kidding," said the kelly-green sweater. "They're going to have to expel her, now., The women agreed the action would be ap- propriate, and then the maize sweater, the quiet one, spoke up. "This discussion is like, depressing. Let's talk about something else. I heard that the By Nick Katsarelas Lambda Sigmas were having their pledge formal at.. ." and here she stopped suddenly. "Look, here comes Laurie!" THE WOMEN- STARED as Laurie and a young man strolled up to theif table. The man had on an alligator shirt and topsiders, clut- ched a pitcher of beer, and snapped his fingers to Bruce Springsteen. The women smiled, and began to tease Laurie: "Na na na na NA na. You're going out with an Alpha Nu. You're going out with an Alpha Nu." "Girls! Girls!" exclaimed Laurie. Mike here isn't an Alpha Nu. He'a a Delta Nu! Say hi to the girls, Mikey." Mike tipped his baseball cap to the women. "Hey there, babes."t Mike can do tricks," bragged Laurie. "Mike, give them your house motto." MIKE PUT down his pitcher, took off his cap and held it over his heart. Closing his eyes tight in concentration, he started slowly; his voice rising to a crescendo. "A man like me is proud to be, A Delta Nu. And unlike you, Is smart and strong and large andlong. Who loves his brother more than his mother. Who knows his fate (it holds no fear), And I can hold my weight in beer. If the girl is pretty, and if she's right, A Delta Nu can go all night. And because like us, there are damn few, That's why I'm a Delta Nu." Mike bowed his head, and pinched Laurie, who smiled. "Isn't he a hunk?" she squealed. "Well, girls, I have to go show Mikey around. Later." THE WOMEN HUDDLED together when they left. "He was no Delta Nu',, said the pink sweater. BDelta Nus have bigger necks." With that, I could stand no more. I had to tall to them. I mean, were they for real? I sat down with my mug of beer. "Hi," I said. They looked at me curiously. "What arc you?" asked the rust sweater. I told them my name. She repeated her question impatiently. "What are you?" "Oh," I mumbled. Confused, I racked my brain for the right answer. "A ... Beta Gafn,' Ilied. The women laughed, pounded on the table, and began to chant: "Bread and butter, toast and jam. Nothing worse than a Beta Gam! Bread and but- ter..." "HOLD ON!" I shouted. "What's wrong with Beta Gams?" "Oh, nothing, said the kelly-green sweater. "Except where was your homecoming display this year? opper "Hey, excusp me," I replied, backing myself into a corner, "but I guess we were too busy sending a poor kid from Bloomfield Hills to camp." "Yeah?" the maize sweater challenged. "We didn't see you at any football games. All thee Greeks go to football games." "I'll tell you something," I said, pointing my finger at her. "We were holding our charity ping-pong marathons then." "What for?" asked the blue sweater. "WHY, TO RAISE money for our charity danceathons!" I snapped. The women looked down at the table, and the rust sweater said, 'Maybe we had you all wrong." Suddenly, Mikey was back, and spilled beer on me as he settled into his chair. He looked at the girl in the kelly-green sweater. "Listen," he said. "You don't know me, but I just have to tell you this. You were fantastic in the Mudbowl. Really fantastic!" All eyes stared at kelly-green. She blushed, tried to suppress, but then let loose, a wide smile. s.She held het pitcher up. "Hail to the Mud- bowl!" she cried. "Hail to the Greeks!" I cried. "Hail to the Victors," we cried. "Beer! Waitress, hey waitress! More beer!" Many of Nick Katsarelas'former best friends live in fraternities and sororities. Kat's Play appears on this page every Wednesday. A Ninety Years of Editorial Freedom Iran hostile a terU.S. abuse v, Vol. XC, No. 138 News Phone: 764-0552 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan- e e e n s move 1 nto Hebron S signals ag T HAS BEEN frequenty noted that history proceeds as does a pendulum. Ideas and leaders first swing in the direction of one set of ideas, and then, as the failings of those ideas (or perhaps of the leaders who expound them) begin to become evident, the mood of a nation, at first. gradually, then with increasing speed, moves toward the other extreme. This model for political behavior is far from perfect; it does not take into account all the unpredictable factors that can effect a population's attitudes. Nor does it recognize catastrophic events that can reverse the pendulum's swing before it has fully run its course. Oscillation has been witnessed not only in the U.S., but in foreign countries as well. Of immediate concern is a trend in the beleaguered. country of Israel toward policies and tactics that look to be truly frightening. Menachem Begin was elected in the spring of 1977 in a wave of militaristic enthusiasm that made Israel's voters want a hard-liner at their helm. Begin's rhetoric, both before and immediately after he came into power, greatly worried those who saw moderation as the only hope for Mideast peace. Though he was aging,. he still sounded very much like the spirited bomb-throwing firebrand he had been in his youth, while fighting for Israeli independence. hward rend What followed his election was a series of strange and unpredicted events that seemed utterly to defy pendulum physics. The sequence of events started with President Sadat's visit to Jerusalem; it culminated with the accords reached at Camp David. All the while, Israel's liberal Labor Party members looked on in awe. They had not known hard-headedness could get one so far. At long last, though, Begin has come home to the kind of action expected of him from the start. He and the majority of his Cabinet have sanctioned plans for two Jewish schools in the city of Hebron. Begin correctly argues that Hebron was at one time in the distant past peaceably inhabited by the Jews; he chooses to ignore the fact that for Jews to settle that territory now, when Hebron stands as the nerve center of the occupied West Bank, is the most provocative act he could possibly commit. There is hope yet. The Cabinet's plans for annexation of Hebron will have to be approved by a Parliament that is resisting, or at least lagging behind, Begin's swing to the right. Let us only hope that most of Israel's leaders do not join in the foolish Begin initiative: This swing may be one from which there is no return. As the prospects for release of the hostages grow ever worse, ordinary Americans might do well to try to view their nation's role in the Mideast from the per- spective of ordinary Iranians. The chief issue at stake in diplomatic negotiations concern such direct actions as the U.S. overthrow of the Iranian gover- nment in 1953, or the CIA's training of SAVAK, the Shah's brutal secret police force. BUT TO THE man on the street-and the chanting throngs outside of the embassy in Tehran-the chief source of hostility toward America may have less to do with U.S. policy 25 years ago than it does with something more immediate and less specific. For the ordinary Iranian, everyday experience is full of evidence that American business, American workers, and American economic principles have had an insidious influene on Iranian life. Our real role in their country,.as Iranians per- ceived it, was one of uncom- plicated exploitation-motivated by a desire to enhance American fortunes no matter what the cost to Iran. As an oil producing nation, Iran was a prime market for the sale of American technology and'ser- vices. The Shah wanted instant development, and the U.S. was only too happy to oblige, if the price was right. BY THE TIME of the oil price increase in 1973, seat-of-the-pants American entrepreneuers were descending on Iran in droves. The U.S. embassy turned into a kind of industrial brokerage firm. Hardly a day passed when the ambassador did not have impor- tant business with one or another American industrial concern. The embassy cocktail party cir- cutiwas a virtual bazaar for business dealings. Though joint business ventures required "Iranian control," that merely meant that Iranian par- tners provided 51 per cent of the financing through government loans. The best partners were, of course, the =r.oyal family and other high government officials who would meet no bureaucratic opposition in their finacnial dealings. Soon, Iran was not only awash in money, it was awash in new industry. The country seemed to be booming. The view that Iran could be persuaded to bankroll almost any U.S. project extended to all sec- tors of U.S. society, including universities. Over 200 institutions in the U.S. had cooperative arrangements with Iranian in- stitutions. AMERICANS working in Iran were generally paid at rates far exceeding those paid to Iranian workers. American indusrial concerns often had multiple pay scales: U.S. citizens received the highest wages, followed by Europeans and Japanese; native Iranians received the lowest wages of all. ITT paid its American staff up to seven times what it paid the Iranian staff, even though in some cases the perience. The refinery city of Abadan was divided between luxurious air conditioned housing with manicured lawns for Westerners, and two room mud- brick dwellings for Iranian workers. In fact, perhaps the greatest source of tension between By William Beeman ugly incidents began to alert both government and business per- sonnel that something was dread- fully wrong. A well-publicized street brawl in Isfahan between American and Iranian workers alarmed the large American companies working there. The response was to create an in 1973-4, the country was awash4 with money with no place for th cash to go. The natural result was horrendous inflation. BY 1977, complaints about prices were the chief source of public discontent, and so the Shah moved to gain control of the economy. The government im- posed tight new regulations and high taxes on the transfer of land, established draconian price con trols for foodstuffs with striK~I penalties for violators, and, as a final blow, cut off subsidies to the clergy and religious institutions. The consequences were im- mediate: The land market collapsed overnight, and with it the construction industry. In the space of less than a month, nearly one million unskilled con- struction workers were laid off. Through it all, factory owner and manufacturers of assembly.- line goods-sectors in which American entrepreneuers held a large interest-were largely un- touched. To the man on the street; the .message was brutally clear-the government was going to control inflation by cracking down on those few areas of the economy in which ordinary citizens could participate. FRUSTRATION yielded t outright protest, and the banking system began to feel the pinch. Ringleaders and prominent mer- chants in the bazaar were harassed and jailed. Unemployed construction workers, many of who had been attracted to the cities by high wages, were trap- ped. Inthis climate of discontent. the incendiary exhorations of th chief spiritual leader of Shi'ite Muslims, Ayatollah Khomeini, finally began to fall on fertile ground. Quite predictably, the bulk of the protesters were from the young, unemployed males in the large cities, and the protests were organized, underwritten, and financed from the bazaar. With Jimmy Carter's election to the Presidency, the U.S. began to preach its policy of huma rights, encouraging ally states to liberalize their governmental structures. The Shah complied, and allowed a small degree of dissent to be heard throughout 1977. When violent protest began in 1978, however, it was ruthlessly suppressed. Thousan- ds died. President Carter's sub- sequent public statements in support of the Shah made it see that the U.S. had set up the Iranian people only to have them massacred. At the time of the revolution, Iran was left with a demoralized population, an economy sprawling out of control, and a repressive autocratic gover- nment that allowed its citizens no influence in policies that affected them directly-not even the right to complain. Worst of all, ta society had all but lost it spiritual core; it had become poisoned-obsessed with materialism and the acquisition of moey and consumer goods. And from the vantage point of the average Iranian, everything that Iran had become had been san- ctioned and supported by the United States. AP Photo AN IRANIAN WEARINGa mask depicting President Carter rattles the chains locking the gates of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran during a massive demonstration yesterday. Many analysts believe Iranian i 11-i 'S .A TrAJ3DY' 'MAT W VIL.L I6MdN 1ArrH ME FOR S.4 RBST' OF MY( L IFS, i Z HAVIE EXPLAWN&D THE CIUMA-w4ceS BOTH FUL.LY ANo COMPLETE~LYt. hostility toward the U.S. results ploitation of Iran. Americans and Iranians was housing. U.S. companies in Iran usually worked' under Iranian government contracts on a "cost- plus" basis, meaning they were paid a certain percentage over the fixed costs of projects. These companies often moved thousan- ds of employes into a city in the space of a month, all of whom had to find housing immediately. Working through brokers, the Americans would swoop down and rent every available nearby apartment or house at whatever price was asked. Since housing costs were '"fixed costs," they literally didn't care how much they paid-the bill would be picked up by the Iranian gover- nment in any case. NATURALLY, AFTER a short time rental costs were driven up throughout the country. In the period from 1972 to 1974, they roughly quadrupled on every class of property. By 1976, they from past American economic ex- American compound far from the city where workers could live in splendid isolation. Far from helping the situation, this com- pound became a local symbol of U.S. arrogance. Sadly, even Americans who were aware of the problems ten- ded to take a sanguine view of them. American presence and profits were rationalized by the belief that Iranians were materially benefiting as a result. Buoyed by the 19 per cent GNP growth figures during some years, American officials pointed with pride to the economic boom they were helping to create. BUT THE BOOM was only superficial. Virtually every new industrial enterprise in Iran after 1965 was an assembly plant, in which consumer goods were fabricated elsewhere and merely put together in Iran. Iranian entrepreneurs, faced with saturated consumer S TAK