t' r a * " s Y OPINION Page 4 Tuesday, October 6, 1981 The Michigan Daily Ouch!A trip to the emergency room Ah, what joy! Oh, what ecstacy! I had just nonchalant as possible when I talked to the WE WERE OBVIOUSLY low-priority cases. into the hall. "Watch out for that-" I offered Id my football tickets for an incredibly glut- nurse on the phone. ,,Suddenly, two ambulance drivers sped by, as she trundled the wheelchair over the seam in nos sum and was lost in a reverie. Into the "I've got this golf-ball-sized lump on my wheeling a bed with an old man in it. The the floor. ir I jumped, trying to kick my heels. ankle and it's turning technicolor and I can't stocky man and I stared sheepishly at the floor. Back in the hall, I again joined my baseball- Onto the ground I landed-right on my ankle. move my foot. Do you think I should come in?" Soon a doctor came by to look at both of us. capped friend, who also had just been X-rayed. Ouch," I blurted. (Actually, it was a I asked her. / \He was very caring and compassionate as he The same doctor who had been so com- omewhat more colorful epithet.) It was 6 p.m., "YOU PROBABLY should," she advised me. twisted my comrade's wrist. passionate earlier now came back shaking his nd my Emergency Room Odyssey was about So I called a cab (I figured an ambulance t1"Ouch," he said. head, our X-rays in hand. We both looked up in begin. would be too ostentatious), and drove over. "Might be broken," the doctor said in his anticipation, moaning softly to enhance our Right from the door I got the royal treat- / \ most concerned tones. maladies, eagerly awaiting the loving attention ment. An orderly offered me a wheelchair, Next he lifted my injured foot. "Does it hurt we would get as a team of specialists labored propped up my right foot, and wheeled me to * o" / / when I do this?" he asked, pushing on my golf over our broken joints, carefully encasing them the elevator. .*: ball. in fresh plaster. All the world would know we "Look out for the-" I suggested as he ram-;*v_ "Ouch," I said. had been gravely injured, that we weren't med my extended foot into the elevator door. -"Might be broken," he repeated in his most faking our ailments to get attention. "Ouch," I said. concerned tones. "Not broken," he grumbled. And he walked I arrived at the emergency room reception away. desk moaning and writhing, which I thought THEN HE DISAPPERED down the hall. We could only help my case. both brightened considerably, now feeling that WE REALLY FELT ltH Sure enough, quicker than you can say our injuries were indeed legitimate. Another w astEAgLYhFedtguiay now. Here we "Stand Clear! We've got to defibrillate!" (Hey, gurney whizzed past. We started grimacing were, wasting these doctors' valuable time, After the initial pain subsided, I figured I I've seen every episode of "Emergency!"), I a with a renewed sense of purpose: and our joints weren't even broken. I was ready swasn't in too much trouble; I could walk on my was given an ice pack and wheeled into the hallWOR It was now 10:45 p.m. and time for an X-ray. jump from my chair and d p a jig; my coms foot without undue agony. That was until 9p.m. to wait. MINI bAN A nurse wheeled me around and off I went to paon was about to commence 50 pushups. Then I noticed the golf-ball sized lump that had NO IVs, NO NURSES hovering over me, no VAILM get zapped. She was pushing me pretty fast, so A nurse came by with two ace bandages to risen below my ankle. And I realized I couldn't doctors flailing needles full of life-sustaining when the wheelchair trundled over that seam wrap our injuries, tell us to keep our respective move my foot. drugs-just an ice-pack. Didn't they believe I in the floor, it sent shock waves of pain through wist and foot elevated, and check to make sure FRANTICALLY, I dialed up Health Service, was really injured? my foot. we had given our proper billing addresses. although I knew that would probably be futile A receptionist came by to process my forms. "Ouch," I said. "Ouch," I said as she bound my foot, won- since I had not made an appointment three "Have you ever been to the hospital before?" "Oh, sorry," she said. "Forgot about that dering how I'd fit a shoe over my golf ball. weeks in advance. But I remembered they had he asked kindly. back another time. seam in the floor." "Ouch," I said again a week later, when I got limp-in hours, so I thought I might get lucky. "Nope, never," I smiled, thinking he would He pushed me a little further up the hall, The X-ray technician insisted that I twist my the bill for $70. At Health Service it would have No way. A tape-recording cheerfully infor- compliment me on my good health. behind a stocky man in a baseball cap who was injured foot in myriad directions to get a num- e r med me that Health Service was closed. "Thanks a lot, buddy," he growled, "Now cradling his right wrist. ber of different pictures. "Just turn it like So) reluctantly, I tried the emergency room I've got to fill out twice as many forms. Why do "How long have you been sitting here?" I this," she said. "Ouch," I said. at University Hospital. I really didn't want to I get all the first-timers?" asked him. Witt's column appears every Tuesday. make a big thing out of my injury, so I was as I apologized profusely and offered to come "Only half an hour," he answered. THE TECHNICIAN then wheeled me back G0 l Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Weasel By Robert Lence Vol. XCI, No. 23 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Zfvt WAVY lb 60 'Cb IRe W M (K- 't5i ou FR Ifs AFRAID TW, rRY AM A* GEW I SLOIJTE NlSED. . an mo tell wou dor ce gre ~Rea I cur ter the tha 197 4uc tig ".T 4n 4 wou Ohy br iea ~ol for das *C, abu gui gro Wou illel PDISCONTNkr'?!7f r 1i1i R u 6njlss WITH 4FT X1 T ~~R. AD W i f4M 1NS IAT160 , T+6 'tiCWN 1J b IW #'Nacm5 ArAyt DtEAMUEMtJIN- WMo I d A YO(O1LL STIW t, t g tE RF.b9Lit t(5EITSPI r.. t /NT YtX. Tw c a't 6. Tof-1/VE tpnar'TD WAY PONJT THEY JU6T GIVE EN ALL LOTWIFS/ / A dangerous CIA order ' RESIDENT REAGAN, it was activity would be fair play for CIA revealed yesterday, may enact agents. executive order granting the CIA But the CIA certainly has no re freedom to conduct domestic in- business delving into the activities of igence gathering. The order, which any domestic group, be it the John Bir- uld allow CIA agents to infiltrate ch Society or the Communist Party. nestic groups and possibly influen- The CIA's charter clearly indicates their activities, poses perhaps the that the CIA's mission is to collect in- atest threat to civil liberties since formation abroad in the interests of agan took office. national security. If there is reason to f enacted, the order would replace believe that a domestic group posed a rent guidelines drafted by the Car- threat to national security and is in- administration designed to prevent volved in illegal activities, then it is the sorts of violations of civil liberties domain of the FBI to investigate and to t occured in the 1960s and early determine whether the group is Os, when CIA and FBI agents con- violating law. ted operations to undermine civil It is also ironic that the president hts and anti-Vietnam War activists. w.a lie new order would also strike bans who came into office swearing to take CIA covert domestic activities and government off the backs of the people CIA allowrthdesCIAtoattusndr is now considering enacting a law that ld allow the CIA to put under is specifically designed to put the tsical surveillance any Americans federal government-the CIA-on the oad regardless of whether there is -t son to believe that they are in- backs of the people in the greatest sen- ved with terrorism, drug traffic, or e, through the surveillance of their eign espionage, as is currently the legal activities. eg President Reagan must realize that learly, there is great potential for the proposed executive order, which use in the new order. There are no requires no congressional approval, is delines to determine what domestic a dangerous threat to civil liberties ups would be infiltrated. There and violates the principles of the CIA's uld be few checks on what the CIA own charter and therefore must send ild do short of assassinations or his aides back to the drawing board to gal break-ins. Virtually any other draft more reasonable guidelines. WELL NowN T144ATYo -~-- 'Si 01 n ( , - LETTERS TO THE DAILY: Gearing up to fight cuts in student aid To the Daily: It was only on Sept. 24 that Reagan announced his plea for Congress to reduce student aid by an additional 42 percent. By the second week in October his request may be met by Congress. The first Congressional budget reconcilliation for 1981-1983 was completed in July and had already provided for reductions in aid. But Thursday's plea marks a second, even more fierce strike against federal funding of higher education. Before students dependent on federal aid to continue their education have a chance to ascer- tain the implications of Reagan's proposal, their aid may be cut. Recommendations are already present in both the House and the Senate to substantially reduce federal allocations to student aid. Despite Reagan's insistance that he would maintain a "safety net" for those truly dependent on governmental assistance, under the new Congressional budget recommendations, programs designed specifically for the lower income students would be most severely depleted. Those programs include the Basic Equal Opportunity Grant, the Supplemental Equal Opportunity Grant, and the National Direct Student Loan, all of which are regulated -by needs-analysis testing. Because these programs, along with the Guaranteed Student Loan constitute the primary source of student aid, there is lit- tle alternative for students who depend on them. Although the House recommendations feature milder cuts than the Senate, there appears to be no Congressional recommendation that wmild rnnnt~r the n itav ,., versions will then be reconciled by a joint House-Senate con- ference, before final approval by the Appropriations Committee. Incidentally, Representative Carl Pursell from Ann Arbor is a member of the House Ap- propriations Committee. It is still too early to tell if Congress will go through with such drastic' cuts. Students can give Congress the necessary reasons not to. Granted, there is uncertain gain in contacting your legislator, but Reagan himself in a press conference on Oct. 1 cited letters from two black youths to support his efforts. For a comparatively small in- vestment against the potential loss you or your classmates may suffer in financial aid, you may express your concern to the ac- tual decision-makers-your legislators. If sent immediately, a letter to your senator should arrive prior to voting. A short note, preferably on a postcard, describing your opinion in per- sonal terms is known to be most effective. In contacting your legislator, refer to the House appropriations recommendations as HR 4560, and in the Senate, the Senate Subcommittee on Education's appropriation recommendation. -Donavan Mack Coordinator PIRGIM Student Aid Task Force Oct.3, 1981 Nuclear devastation is not funny :' I X* r; ; 2 rti. . , t i /. ylxl I " " t, - 111 '41 1 :\ I 1 I r. \ I I : ,;. , , ; ; I ! ; ,, l I ;; r , "' , 4 ,.., f r I i r { { a'c , F ,. To the Daily: I must tell you I find Steve Hook's article, "Baseball 1992: It's a Blast!" (Daily, Sept. 25, 1981), in extremely poor taste-or should I say utterly repugnant? Intercontinental nuclear war absolutely should never be made light of. I realize this article was intended to take satire to its greatest limits, but Hook's "lam- poonery" is simply disgusting. One of the most disturbing aspects of this story is the dialogue: "You can only pour so much Maalox down their throats,"... "They could have waited until next mon- th. ". .. "I'm just delighted," The last line particularly troubles me-someone being "delighted" at a nuclear attack, at full scale murder, at ab- solute devastation?!? In only thirty-six years have Hook and the Daily forgotten the atrocities committed against the peoples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? "4 vinr" f haa ahnlar Major Events insensitive page prior to this "baseball" ar- ticle, an article on the upcoming scheduled nuclear weapons talks between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Surely it is inadmissable to make jest of such a grave situation. Hook's goal may have been to produce humorous ridicule criticizing the terrible nuclear situation, but this is not what came across. The immoral, inhuman, enor- mity of nuclear disaster has in- stead been made light of. I sin- cerely hope in the future much greater care will be taken in the publishing of articles of this im- portant and serious nature. -Timothy J. Moshier September 28, 1981 To the Daily: Each year the Office of Major Events faces the difficult task of scheduling concerts within such constraints as performer availability, hall availability, and school calendar conflicts. Regar- dless of these limits, I feel that a recent incident demonstrates Major Events' gross insensitivity toward student needs. Last year when Ann Arbor was treated to a concert by Bruce Springsteen, Major Events scheduled ticket sales to begin on the first day of the Jewish New Year. Springsteen was an instant o01ahl.. 0".A "nn-, A date was determined by "somebody in New York''. When I expressed my desire to contact this "somebody in New York" I was told that they could not tell me who he was for "security reasons". Regardless of who set the date it is difficult to believe that Major Events could not have influenced the decision maker to schedule ticket sales on another day. A scheduling conflict like this, two years in a row, is inexcusable. Major Events cannot, blame anyone but itself. I believe an incident like this, viewed 2lnng with nthr t4iir