Page 4--Wednesday, April 16, 1980-The Michigan Daily rr Some looks at some books Nitel "1I'(l rs o f" Eliioria I Freedomn Vol. XC, No. 156 News Phone: 764-0552 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Regents and 'S OFTEN nice to be surprised. In last week's- Michigan Student Assembly (MSA) elections, students surprisingly voted 2-1 to raise their m'andatory student government fee assessment by $1.33 over the next three ye rs. et, surprises can also be un- pleasant. Most of the increased funds will go to support financially-strapped Student Legal Services (SLS) - if the Regents don't pull a surprise of their own at their monthly meeting tomorrow and Friday. Because the University collects MSA funds each term (the fee assessment is paid along with tuition bills), the Regents must approve any increase or decrease in the mandatory. assessment. This means that despite an overwhelming student mandate for the increased fees, the Regents could surprise everyone and deny the assessment hike. To a casual observer, it might not seem even a remote possibility that the Regents would kill the fee hike in the face of significant student support for it. The observer, like most students, would realize that SLS has not had a revenue increase in several years; that without increased funds, SLS can- not possibly continue to provide its variety of free legal services to studen- ts, because it cannot possibly pay competitive salaries to lawyers. Yet, the observer might not be familiar with the Regents. Although they must be credited with some degree of genuine concern for the financial hardships of students, the unpredictable Regents sometimes ap- pear more preoccupied with political showmanship. Consider the Regents' short-sighted Y Y CIA seCrecy N FEBRUAY, the Supreme Court, inan extremely unusual move, ordered former CIA agent Frank Snepp to turn over the profits from a book he had written about the Agency. The decision was handed down by the justices without benefit of hearing either side of the case. a Now the Court, as expected, has denied a petition for "rehearing" Shepp's case, even though it was never really heard in the first place. The controversy over Snepp's book rose over a clause in his standard contract that he would submit anything he wrote about the CIA for learance before bringing it to a publisher. That Snepp violated the letter of the contract is not at issue; - he acknowledges that he did. But there re certain kinds of promises, which, under the law, are not binding. One example: If the signer of a document can prove that he or she signed with anything less than full consent, the Sthe fee hi~ke approval of a land agreement with local developer John Stegeman, which helped pave the way for a skyscraper to blight the southeast corner of cam- pus. It appears the Regents had hoped to enhance their image by making a few extra thousand dollars for the University on a purchase-option agreement; the move backfired. And, perhaps more to the immediate issue, consider the Regents' action last year to strip SLS of its power to defend students in legal actions involving the University. The Regents are aligned against SLS, and this opposition could be reflected in their decision to deny it more money. There is precedent, therefore, for the Regents to attempt to use the fee hike to their political advantage. They could very well approve an 18 per cent tuition hike this summer, claiming it is inevitable, while they deny a $1.33 MSA fee hike tomorrow, maintaining that students can't afford it. Indeed, the fee hike denial, if it comes, will probably occur after some minutes of extended protestations about additional financial burdens on students. The Regents can therefore make themselves appear as student advocates, always watching out for our best interests. We hope SLS does not become the un- fortunate victim of this political maneuvering. We hope the Regents approve the fee increase, acknowledging that in this case, an ad- ditional financial burden is warranted - and actually welcomed by students. And we hope the Regents consider carefully the University's genuine needs before they sanction tuition in- creages approaching 20 per cent. But we have our doubts. none too far Continuing its tradition of offering services to students, the Daily today reviews four of the more popular texts used for fall courses. CHEMISTRY By Ben Bunsen Freeman Publishing Company $24.95, 418 pp. In this updated reprint from the notorious 1923 edition, Bunsen (Chemistry and Your Health, Carboxylic Acids: Fact or Fiction?) writes in the refreshing and tantalizing fashion of which only he is capable. Bunsen starts off, teasing the reader with the difference between physical and chemical reactions, without ever delving into the significance of such a discourse. But the pace picks up, as Bunsen takes us through 19th Century atomic theory and roars into the modern theories of Schrodinger, Heisenburg, and Dirac. The penchant he has for writing beautiful prose is a welcome change from the matter of-factness-style of his colleagues: "As we know, the molarity of a solution can be used to determine the number of moles of solute from the volume or the volume needed to contain a specific number of moles of solute." Here we witness the inklings of quiet desperation as Bunsen strains to symbolically share with us his depression over his parents' homosexual relationships. The author, though bent on destroying most myths about chemical bonding, consistently confuses polyatomic and monoatomic ions. This goes on for 40-some pages, and Bunsen inadvententlymisspells "bromide," offering comic relief to the by-this-time-distraught reader. Typographical errors may be found on pages 34, 59, 126, 245, 271, 350, 353-358, and 383. Though he concludes by stating "compoun- ds such as cholesterol are called polycyclic compounds"we know he means much more than that. * * * * CLIFF NOTES: GRAPES OF WRATH By Herb Blany and Lester Hughes C:liff Notes $1.95, 29 pp. Herb Blany and Lester Hughes have just completed one of the most cursory examinations of this 1939 epic in many years. Mssrs. Blany and Hughes write with an in- tellect that is different at best, and atrocious at worst. Their character descriptions are shallow, the plot summary depthless, and the discussion of imagery is surface. "Really, quite an important work," said Herb's wife, Mary. The 29-page "masterpiece" (Lester's words), though rarely discussed in literary By Nick Katsarelas circles, entices the readers with two illustrations. The first is a color plate of the frontal and dorsal view of the infamous land turtle ("Drawn to scale and everything," boasted Herb). The second is a map of the Joad's automobile journey through the West, which includes a legend indicating the location of mountain ranges and government camps. Like their approach, Hughes and Blany's stay with Cliff Notes was brief. Because of their startling success, they have been hired Wayne, Margaret Trudeau, and Julius Irving. Instead of, for instance, an exchange of words between Pepe and Alma, we have: "Hola, Suzanne Sommers. Como estas?" "Estoy bien, gracias, Gerald Ford. Quienes son estas personas?" "Son mis amigos: Sergio Mendez y Brazil '77." ** * * ULYSSES By James Joyce vintage Book Company $8.95,;783 pp. 0 A dirty book. This novice writer obviously Z a4 THFSE HAPPY STUDENTS are waiting anxiously to pay for their texts and discover the won- f4 derful, fascinating world of books. away by Monarch Publishing Co., which is needs a few lessons in punctuation-one of the currently negotiating with NBC-TV for a more accepted tools of writing-for it is possible Made-for-TV Monarch Notes version missing in the last 46 pages. of Literary Classics. * * * * The title comes out of nowhere, for as far as BASIC ESPAN OL I can discern, none of the characters is named Harcourt, Brace, and Jovanovich Ulysses. a c P $14.95, 290 pp. Like Part I, but more advanced. The authors, former youth hostel maintenance men in Barcelona, have a mastery of Spanish language that many Americans lack. Their fluency and liveliness with which they write makes the text interesting and absorbing. Lines like ":Donde esta la biblioteca?" ("Where is the library?") and "No importa. Yo tengo papel" (Don't worry. I have paper), offers a respectable answer to the often-asked question "Why Spanish? Why not, say, Fren- ch?" The authors also believe that celebrities make the textbook more readable. Thus, we find quite enthralling, sometimes amusing, dialogues between such big names as "Juan" The book is 783 pages-pretty long for a book, and if you're listening, Jim, maybe you should have put a Table of Contents or something. Really, too long. Best book bets: Toth, America: A - European Idea?, Jrzshchinski, Jrzschchin-. ski: Autobiography of a WASP, Johnson, Adult Games your Children Can Play, Susan Anton's 1967-1979: Ten Years of My Life, and e Davis, Famous Anthropologists and their Bir- thdays. a This is the last of Nick Katsarelas 1Kat's Plays, but not the last of Nick Kaisarelas. You can see him on "Bowling for Dollars" in early June. His average is 113. validity of the agreement can be called into question (and overruled) in a court of law. It is clearly not in the nation's in- terest for the CIA contract to be unex- ceptionally binding. The Agency, after all, has a long tradition of being over- sensitive about its operations. Just recently, some formerly classified material was released which revealed that President Nixon had once privately discussed the U.S. role in western Asia. The material was quite innocuous by anyone's standards-ex- cept those of the CIA. Perhaps a panel of judges and/or congresspersons could be established as a screening committee for CIA- related material, to ensure that genuine secrets are not made public. But for the CIA to be able to decide unilaterally to stifle embarrassing in- formation is clearly an intolerable state of affairs. The Agency's secrecy to date has frequently hurt U.S. interests, and has only occasionally advanced them. Once again, socialist Cuba is making the news all around the country. Once again, the newspapers are distorting the in- formation and the events taking place in Havana. It has been reported that anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 (estimates vary widely) Cubans are gathered at the Peruvian Embassy in the Cuban capital seeking asylum. Of course, the US government has wasted no time in unleashing its traditional anti-socialist propaganda charging that the revolutionary government in Cuba is oq the verge of collapse. Wishful thinking. Most of those seeking asylum are doing so for economic, not political reasons. Cuba is going' through a bad economic period which has been worsened by problems with the tobacco and sugar crops. Also, the U.S. still maintains the 20-year-old economic blockade against the island. Even with these problems, Cuba remains well ahead of other underdeveloped countries in providing free education, free health care, housing, feeding its entire population, and providing jobs for everyone, or at least those who want to work. In Latin America, there is not one country that comes close to Cuba in these areas even though there are quite a few countries that possess rich natural resources that Cuba U. S. unfairly maligns Cuba on re fugees By Carlos Morales lacks. Those coun- tries-Venezuela, Brazil, and Mexico are a few-are capitalist- oriented. While a small minority of nationals and foreigners benefit from the wealth, the overwhelming majority lives in extreme poverty. IT IS IRONIC that while the U.S. government is trying to make a big deal out of the current situation with the aim of discrediting the Cuban gover- nment and its socialist policies, thousands of Haitian "boat people" have been slocking to the coasts of Florida for months but have received very little atten- tion from the news media. Why? The U.S. government is concer- ned that the tyrannical and fascist dictatorship of Duvalier in Haiti which they support and assist will get more exposure. It is well known that the U.S. multinational corporations have sizeable economic interests in Haiti and they benefit directly by paying low wages and brutally exploiting the oppressed Haitians. What is worse is the treatment that awaits 'the Haitians when they get to the U.S. They are denied work and many are sent back to Haiti where they face prison, torture, and/or death. In contrast, when the U.S. allowed Nicaraguans (who favored Somoza) into this coun- try they received a completely dif- ferent treatment even though they were supporters of a fascist dictator. Another reason they Haitians are victims of this treatment is that they are black, and racism is perhaps the most conspicuous feature of U.S.P society to this day. The mass media in this country, do a superb job of deceiving the people. The Haitian people coming to this country are risking their lives because theyt are*politically persecuted and because economic opportunities in their country are very bad. Cubans coming to this country; represent a marginal group in Cuba that is unwilling to share the work and responsibility that comes with the building of socialism. . Thbse seeking to leave Cuba are wrong if they think they are going to "make it" in the U.S. or any other capitalist country. One look at the Cuban community in this country shows a high unem- ployment and people living at poverty or near-poverty levels. Furthermore, the U.S. is falling into deeper economic problems and the ones who pay for it first are Hispanics, blacks, native Americans, and other minorities. Time will tell. Carlos Morales, a native of Puerto Rico, is an LSA junior. vitation legitimate sources in favor of those who offered caustic quotes and half-truths. ~ We, like others in the Ann Ar- bor area, share the disappoin- tment that Anderson will not speak here this week. However, that decision to cancel came from the national Anderson committee . NOW POYOUEXPLAIN YOUR AMAZtNE, SPRINT TO CON ERVArl(SM & j yoU MI40r 5AY 1'#V6 SEEN Mg 16Hr!. LETTERS TO THE DAILY: Hosts explain Anderson in I To the Daily: In a Today item appearing in Tuesday's paper (Daily, April 15) concerning the cancellation of John Anderson's speech on cam- pus, the Daily quoted several disparaging remarks by Brad Canale that we, Michigan Studen- ts for Anderson, believe are un- staff, and a two-way' corres- ondence was started. Finally, through the efforts of Michigan student volunteers in Illinois and Wisconsin, contacts were established with the national An- derson for President staff, and a date was set for Anderson's ap- pearance here. These efforts Canale's involvement with An- derson's appearance ended. The advantages of allowing more people to hear Congressman Anderson, and of coordinating activities of both the campus and county organizations, ishould be ap- parent to all. While Canale con-