4
OPINION
--f-
Page 4
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Saturday, November 14, 1981.
The Michigan Daily
Ann Arbor: Drinking center
Vol. XCII, No. 57
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, Ml48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
The mystical solution
T HE REAGAN administration began
sharpening its knives again
Tuesday-and, once again, began
pointing them at the food stamp
budget.
The administration says that the
current farm bill provides $5 billion
less than will' be needed in the next
three years to pay food stamps benefits
at current levels. So what mystical
solution is there for these economic
ills?
Reaganomics; cut, slash, and chop
away at the food stamp budget again.
Reaganomics tells us that we should
cutaway at all social programs- they
are filled with waste and inefficiency.
Haig b
THERE WAS a fascinating exchange
between Rep. Garry Studds
(D-Mass.) and Secretary of State
Alexander Haig during a House
Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on
Thursday.
"Would you give assurances," Stud-
ds asked the Secretary," the United
States will not make a direct or in-
direct effort to overthrow or
destabilize the current government of,
Nicaragua?"
"No, I would not giye you such an
assurance," Haig responded.
But that,'' he continued, "must not
bJterpreted by mischievous
i uisitois to represent an articulation
opolicy one way or another because
that would be a self-defeating
statement by responsible executive
branch officials."
4{ypdthetical executive branch of-
ficials aside, what Haig seems to be
trying very- hard not to 'say too openly
is: that the administration is con-
sidering strong action-possibly
military action-against the current
Nicaraguan government.
The Reagan' administration has
shown hostility toward the Nicaraguan
junta in the past, but opposition shown
on Thursday was much more
Reaganomics teaches us that the
military is a sacred cow and its budget
should remain unscathed. Let no
Congressional hand soil the sanctity of
that noble bovine lest the evil powers of
the East overtake our nation.
And, Reaganomics promises us, that
in return for strict worship, inflation
and our other economic ills will end.
But wait a minute, didn't David,
Stockman, the chief guru of
Reaganomics just say the entire cult
was a hoax and really won't achieve
the things it promised?
Yes, but don't worry, he's been
silenced and is now being reindoc-
trinated into the divine principle of
Reaganomics.
It is hard to imagine a college campus
without a single bar or package liquor
store. But after Congress passed the 18th
amendment prohibiting the "manufac-
ture, sale or transportation of intoxicating
liquors, "in 1920 America was "dry" un-
til Prohibition was repealed in 1933.
However, a September 30, 1931 article in
Replay;
ByI
Will McLean Greeley
the Daily reveals that Michigan's campus
was anything but dry.
ANN ARBOR SECOND ONLY TO
GOTHAM AS A STUDENT
DRINKING CENTER
Ann Arboes standing as a student liquor
consuming center among universities of the
country is surpassed only by that of the city of
New York, according to a recent survey of the
situation,/made by two Wisconsin graduates
who discuss their findings in a recent issue of
Campus Comics quarterly.
Closely followed by Michigan, in the opinion
of the investigators, are Reno, the seat of the
University of Nevada, and Madison,, the well
known playground of the Wisconsin students.
GORDON F. SWAR THOUT and James S.
Watrous, authors of the treatise, rate the city
of Ann Arbor as being "lousily dry," and go
on to explain the high rating the Michigan.
campus received as being due to the weekly
expeditions made by students to Detroit, well
known as the alcoholic capital of the Middle
West.
While the favorite campus drink at
Michigan is whiskey, according to the report,
there is little drinking done in Ann Arbor ex-
cept very'much on the quiet, since the
University snaps the padlock on all places
where liquor is found, even fraternity houses.
Current prices in Ann Arbor for alleged
genuine Canadian imports are: rye, $6 a
quart, beer available within 10 miles $6 for 5
gallons, scotch $7to $10 a quart, alky $10 to $15
a gallon,. and gin $1.50 to $3 a quart, according' -
to the writers.
Swarthout and Watrous describe their owr
alma mater as being a center for the spiker
beer industry, with whiskey and gin also
popular...
IN DISCUSSING THE nation wide situation
the survey names the University of Virginia.
as a good drinking school, along with the
others already rated. While the traditional
.studentdrink of the nation is beer, the report
concludes the Middle West, especially
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa, is the only
area where the beer ,tradition is being,'
thoroughly upheld.
* X* * -*
NEXT WEEK: First Women at the 'U'
Greeley's column
Saturday.
appears every
Feiffer
ilicosity
OA/(-
/0
/
4r.
&W r ? r
wLP H
pRCWie1u.
0t
aggressive than before. -For the first
time, Nicaragua was portrayed by
Haig as threatening the vital strategic
interests of the United States.
Even more disturbing was Haig's
assertion that there was "mounting
evidence in Nicaragua of the
totalitarian nature of the Sandinista
regime," and that the goal of American
policy in the Western Hemisphere
"should be to "preclude the outcome of
totalitarianism."
Haig seems almost totally oblivious
to the fact that much of the antagonisni,
Nicaragua has toward the United
States is rooted in the willing support
the U.S. gave former Nicaraguan dic-
tator Anastasio Samoza; Samoza's
regime, in fact, is probably a much
more likely candidate to be accused of
"totalitarian" tendencies than the
Sandinista government.
Improved relations with Nicaragua
can only come through a willingness of
the U.S. administration to discuss its
problems with the Nicaraguans, not
through veiled threats of force.
If Haig really wants to ease tensions
between the U.S. and Nicaragua, he
should drop the bellicose polemics and
start demonstrating an ability to
listen.
C1UEr
- Ssc .
1w(W
t£rUc CoVYt i
L/AP64~k5r
PIM terfk~.
/s/r .xis R. OF'
OMR P g
OF TaeWfJ
I
, a
qrfr* -.
LETTERS
TO THE DAILY:
Football seating policy should change
To the Daily:
Saturday's football game was
fun to watch, but I once again ex-
perienced theafrustrations of
overcrowding and being unable
to sit in my assigned seat.
There are serious problems
with the current policy of seating
students by assigned section and
seat at football games. Some in-
dividuals are relegated to seats
with a poor view, while lucky
others get choice seats for the en-
tire season.
Consequently, the unlucky
students sit in places where the
view is good, not in their own
seats. Thus the ticket-holder with
a good seat must face the un-
pleasant facts that he will be
squeezed and/or not be able to sit
in his assigned place.
To compound matters, non-
students holding student-section
tickets often demand to sit in
their assigned places, angering
students and contributing to the
overcrowding problem. Merely
+Gnkktuc. P c3RAM IS 81 .
O Soumo ASSuMMf'fL
CLEA-CVY- ST h.4TUG/
AND mocAL dc*7"C77vr+E... "
asking students to sit in assigned
seats has had little effect in the
past, and will probably do little to
change the situation in the future.
Seating students by section
only (section assignments would
still depend on number of U-M
credits, as in the present system)
could alleviate many of the
seating problems. Although
overcrowding would still occur
for choice seats (and non-
students would continue to sit in
student sections) students could
not bo forced out of choice seats
beacuse seats would not be
assigned.
For the same reason, students
would not have to sit in poor seats
for an entire season. A ticket-
holder's choice of seats within his
section would depend on the time
he arrives at the stadium; the
early fans would get the choicest
seats.
The new seating policy could
have other beneficial side-
effects: as obtaining a good seat
would depend on arriving early
(for non-students with student
tickets), traffic flow might be
spread over a longer- period of
time before the game, reducing
the chance.of traffic jams. Ad-
ditionally, time and money could
be saved as a computer program
would not be necessary fo ran-
domly choosing student seats.
Students can no longer tolerate
the problems caused by the
current seating policy. Change
the system to seating by assigned
section for students.
-K. Timothy Mantyla
November 12
Daily 's defeatist attitude
To the Daily:
Your editorial "A Noble Ef-
fort" (Daily, Nov. 5) not only
exemplifies but reaffirms the
defeatist attitude maintained on
this campus towards social
change.
What do you hope to accom-
plish by first commending MSA
for collecting over 400 letters
from students to send to senators
in regard to student aid
legislation, and then concluding
that, "maybe, by some fluke,
Sens. Riegle and Levin will listen
to what they have to say-but
they shouldn't count on it."
Where is your alternative
strategy? Moreover, where is
your coverage of student aid
legislation? Ingrained in your
defeatism is your negligence of
the issue until after the vote has
takenrplace, when you shock us
with your mournful commen-
taries.
Every day you devote a full
column to soliloquize your gripes-
about the abuse of power,
whether' it is Khadafy's
belligerent foreign policy or the
University pursuing defense
research contracts.
There seems to be no aualm as
student and the legislator.
That "syrupy" letter you
receive from the senator's office
is sure to be, loaded with
diplomacy; however, it is an of-
ficial position paper on the issue.
Perceptive students will note that
if they receive an uncommitted
response, they aren't getting
much help. They will know they
need a new legislator. -
Follow through with a second
letter forewarning the direction
of your vote in the next election.
Expose the legislator's response
in the newspaper. Identify
targets for protests.
It is precisely this technique
that caused such an uproar in
Congress over proposed Social
Security cuts last summer.
Sadly, it is also to the credit of the
anti-government opposition that
their active grass-roots lobbying
payed off with the creation of a
false mandate.
More than 12.5 million college
students, their parents, high
school students, graduates, and
other supporters of student aid
bear the potential collective
strength to make further cuts
politically impossible. Even you
couldn't deny the significance of
30.000 known letters sent from all
Witt has bad timing
To the Daily:
Poor Howard Witt. He has
terrible timing.
If he had waited until Thursday
to publish his column, he would
have had the words of David
Stockman to back him up. With
his remarks on the "trickle
down" nature of Reagan's
economic program, the
President's own budget director
provides evidence for Witt's
assertion that conservatism is in
part a philosophy for the rich and
greedy. If Witt had only been able
to wait until Thursday, he could
have looked to OMB for supportd
But nooooo (as another
Chicagoan used to say). The
'Fe iffer' car
To the Daily:,
The editorial cartoon "Feiffer"
regular Tuesday publication of
Witt's column gave two precious
days to those who disagreed with- W
him: one day to 'write affronted
letters to the editor and another,
for the Daily to print them. In'
stead of being applauded for his
insight, Howard Witt is now
chastised for thinking of spitting,.
when it seems his principal error
is simply bad timing.
Now that Stockman has made
the views of the administration a:-
little clearer, I wonder how many
of Thursday's letter writers will
reconsider their reactions-and
perhaps their politics, as well.
-Deborah Tyma
November 13
toon unfair
terest in peace and recognized
Israel's right to exist.