OPINION Page 4 Tuesday, April 14, 1981 Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan I'll stay with Wond Vol. XCI, No. 158 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 They were serving my favorite lunch at West Quad last Thursday - grilled cheese sandwiches. (I have rather plebeian tastes). As I grabbed a tray and some steelware, the food server asked me the big question. "White or wheat?" she grilled me cheesily. "White," I answered. My tastes may be plebeian but I don't like Roman Meal. Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Additions to the hit list CONGRATULATIONS are due to three House Democratic leaders and one senator for earning spots on the NCPAC political hit list. The National Conservative Political Action Committee announced yesterday that it will launch a $1 million campaign to defeat the four liberals in the next elec- tion. NCPAC Chairman John Dolan said yesterday that his group will spend $1 million in TV ads attacking the four as Capitol Hill big spendors. Dolan said his group's efforts are "a campaign to help President Reagan pass his economic recovery program through Congress." NCPAC announced it will spend $450,000 in Texas in hopes of defeating Rep. Jim Wright, the House majority leader; $400,000 in Maryland to defeat Sen. Paul Sarbanes; $100,000 to defeat Rep. Jim Jones of Oklahoma; and $50,000 to defeat Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, who has just presented his own plan to cut the federal budget. The NCPAC conservatives often tout the principle of free representative elections as one of the many virtues that "make America great." Yet, they hope to stifle Congressional debate over the policies they endorse by eliminating the opponents by manipulating elections in faraway Congressional districts. Flooding the airwaves of a target area with manipulative commercials financed by outside interests, while perhaps politically efficacious, hardly seems compatable with truly free elections. Witticisms By Howard Witt from their counter and were staring at me. "Look at how he's running through his lunch," one of them snickered. AND THEN I turned to page 5. Right above the movie ad for Inside Moves, I saw what the food servers were laughing about. "White bread may cause diarrhea," the story read. I swallowed the last of my sandwich. It seems that some researchers at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Minneapolis have concluded that most people have trouble absorbing all-purpose wheat flour, the kind used to make ordinary white bread. "What it means is that when the average person eats a slice of bread, a fair proportion of it is never absorbed in the small bowel and goes down into the large intestine and can be con- verted into gas or into the stuff that con- ceivably causes diarrhea," Dr. Michael Levitt, one of the researchers, said in an in- terview. THAT'S JUST GREAT, Dr. Levitt. For 21 years I've been eating Wonder Bread, trying to build a strong body twelve ways, and now you come along. Since the early '70s, the scientists have been trying to give us diarrhea, telling us to eat high fiber foods because they aid in digestion and loosen the intestines. Some of us turned to Bran Chex. My doctor prescribed cardboard boxes - "Some corrugation each day keeps the doctor away," he told me. Now the scientists are warning us against The Michigan Daily er Bre ad' the dreaded malady, telling us that low fiber- foods (there can't be anything lower in fiber than Wonder Bread)\ will grease our inner workings excessively. They've got us comib%: and, uh, going. WHAT'S NEXT, DR. Levitt? You'y already warned us about the dangers of hot' dogs (they're made from the filthiest parts-df the pigs) and apple pies (too many preset vatives). Are you going to announce that w. can't eat baseballs, either? I think you and your kind actually rig yabn experiments just to torment the America. public. I mean, take that alleged link betwee coffee and cancer. You put Joe DiMagg1i4,. Edith Hamilton, and Robert Young in a lat' and have them force-feed scalding java to a dozen rats and of course you're going to end up with some very sick rodents. I can see it now: You've already woun-6 ded the king of American breads; now you're poised to attack the entire bread industry. "Lifting hundred pound cases of Butternut. found to cause hernias," the headlines will read. "Consumption of 50 Pepperidge Farm dinner rolls smeared with butter linked to obesity," you will announce. Well, damn you, I'll not abandon a friend as faithful as Wonder Bread so easily. In fact, I'm going to run right out and get some. This, alas, is the final Witticisms for the 1980-81 school year. Howard might be back in the fall. Then again, he might not. The food server giggled. "You know white bread causes ... "Then she stopped herself. "CAUSES WHAT?" I asked, somewhat concerned. The West Quad food service workers are usually pretty good about war- ning you of potentially dangerous foods, like "City Chicken" or "French Dips." "Oh, nothing," she grinned. "Just be sure to get lots of napkins." I was a little puzzled, but I went to sit down and eat, my Daily tucked under my arm. So here I was munching my delectable white bread grilled cheese sandwiches and glancing at my Daily when I noticed that the food ser- ver and several co-workers had walked out Hippo stew for women, too 1I4EV'E RIGUI1 STOP 11AEM~ SAP IAPORTS1 BUY 'AMvERlIM 1" jJ . J WHAT KINPA CAR AAERKIAN' DO YOU INVE IV I KED f7 50 WELL THAT LAST EE~ K I BOUGRT T4E PERFECT AMERICAN '3ECOtN) CAR' t l l Itlt NllAll ktt pl1 N"l -A TOW TRUCK' I. L AST SATURDAY ' the all-male Explorers Club dined on fried catfish nuggets, lion loaf, mountain bear meatballs, yak patties, jellyfish, moose mousse, and hippo stew. But by next year, women can officially join the club, take their place at the feast, and gorge themselves on hippo stew as well. Sunday the club, after 76 years, finally voted to admit women. The Explorers have definitely forged into new territoryby admitting women to their ranks. They have attempted the-feat before,v but have never suc- ceeded. As a result of this daring, outlandish adventure, some members of the board of directors predicted that the club could lose up to 300 members. Those casualties, however, should prove insignificant to a club whose members pride themselves on the ability to explore new territory and face new challenges. If those lily- livered cowards can't live up to the challenge of admitting women, then good riddance to them. Certainly women, such as astronaut Kathryn Sullivan, who has flown higher than any other woman, or Sylvia Earle, who has dived deeper than any man or woman, deserve a spot in the elite club. 1/ 9 Arl f LL1 L. The loss of a friend T HOSE OF US who work each day in the Student Publications Building suffered a painful loss last weekend with the passing of Karl Diener, administrative assistant in our business office. Karl, who was 70, had been recuperating from a heart attack he suffered several weeks ago. He was planning to retire this summer, after 12 years of supervising business operations for the Daily, the Michiganensian, and the Gargoyle. Students come and go through the doors at 420 Maynard Street, but Karl was always an enduring fixture, a grandfather with a sharp memory to come and visit years after you had left the University. Whether you wanted help with a tax return or a refund from the Coke machine, Karl was more than happy to help. And we will always smile when we recall Karl's quavering voice relating stories of his rich past in Reading, Pennsylvania. For nearly a year we had been eagerly planning a grand retirement party for Karl this summer. We are saddened that such a party will never come to pass. ,Reagan The Reagan administration's plan to save hundreds of millions of dollars by sharply cut- ting back public subsidies for passenger rail service may end up costing taxpayers even more than the savings. To all appearances, the administration's rational for lopping off 30 percent of Amtrak's federal subsidy - which Amtrak President Alan Boyd says will end all Amtrak service outside the Boston-New York-Washington Corridor - has failed to take into account the many "hidden" costs of ending rail service. As Amtrak's senior director for corporate relations, Fletcher Prouty, explains it: "It's like running a 200-room hotel that's losing money and closing 20 of the rooms. You might save a little money. But you still have to pay for heating, upkeep, a desk clerk ... Well, that's the problem. We have certain financial obligations we have to take care of if Reagan forces us to close everything down outside of the corridor." A recent Amtrak working paper reveals that the rail service's irreducible costs in- clude: $130 million in capital commitments; $200 million for labor protection payments; and $25 million for shutdown costs and preserving and storing equipment. This $355 million in costs is already greater than the $240 million that the administration would like to shave off Amtrak's $853 million request for 1982. Prouty and other Amtrak officials question why this money can't be spent for operating Amtrak, rather than paying the costs of closing it down. Amtrak's President Boyd maintains that the $240 million difference between Amtrak's and Reagan's budget proposals will cost the nation 90 percent of its passenger train stops, 97 percent of its route miles, 50 percent of its ridership and 60 percent - or over $320 million - in revenues. Critics of the cuts also point out that Am- trak's entire 1982 budget request would be spent in only 180 days by the military's pet rail system for nuclear missiles - the MX - which consumes $4.5 million daily in research and development costs, though it hasn't been built yet or approved by Congress. Another cost of the Amtrak cuts, more deeply hidden but equally significant, is the petroleum that will be used to fuel other for- By Mark Schapiro ms of transportation that will have to be sub- stituted for train travel. In Congressional testimony, the administration has asserted that the reduction of rail service will force people to rely on more cost efficient modes of transportation, such as buses and airplanes. But passenger trains remain the most energy-efficient form of transportation. An 18-car passenger train, pulled by two locomotives, yields 450 passenger-miles-per- gallon (PMG) of fuel. This compares to 250 pmg for inter-city buses; between 36 pmg and 62 pmg for passenger jets; and 20 pmg to 40 pmg for passenger cars. A Congressional Budget Office report in 1979 estimated that Amtrak had the potential for saving 873,000 barrels of oil per day by 1984 by attracting people away from more inefficient modes of transportation - a savings over 10 years equivalent to the amount of crude oil produced by the U.S. in 1975. Also, the argument that private sector air transport is more cost efficient than sub- sidized rail service fails to account for the fact that the airline industry itself is heavily subsidized through the Federal Aviation Ad- ministration, whose budget is nearly four times that of Amtrak. In drawing up the proposed cuts, Office of Management and the Budget Director David Stockman declared that he hopes to bring Amtrak closer to its 1971 Congressional man- date to. operate as a "profit-making cor- poration." The administration contends that as it is presently operated, Amtrak does not provide nearly enough benefits in service for the cost of its subsidy. But some of Amtrak's most prominent sup- porters - including Congressman James Florio (D-NJ), whose House Subcommittee on Commerce, Transportation and Tourism will hold hearings on Amtrak's authorization - maintain that passenger trains provide an important public service and should not be expected to make a profit. A General Accounting Office report released last year stated: "We do not believe that Amtrak is, in a practical sense, a private, for-profit corporation as was originally plan- cuts halt A mtrak I ned by Congress in the Rail Passenger Ser- vices Act." The GAO claims that Amtrak should not be judged according to standards set for private business, and recommends that the federal government erase Amtrak's debt to the Treasury. Bruce Gwinn, counsel for Florio's sub- committee, comments, "It's totally unrealistic to expect that Amtrak could ever cover costs out of revenue. No passenger rail service in the world does that. All passenger rail systems worldwide are subsidized." The highly efficient train systems in Europe are all government-owned, Gwinn added, and cover only 30 to 50 percent of their costs through revenues. Japan's popular rail service costs the government more than five times as much as Amtrak's annual budget. Amtrak now covers 44 percent of its operating costs through revenues; Reagan's budget analysts would like to increase that con- tribution to 80 percent by 1985 - a figure which Boyd contends is impossible. In April, Gwinn's subcommittee will hear a compromise proposal that would grant Am- trak $790 million in federal subsidies - less than Amtrak's request and more than the administration's. According to Gwinn, in= stead of losing train service in the western three-quarters of the nation, this proposal would result in the elimination of only four long-distance routes - those between Washington D.C. and Chicago, Washington D.C. and Cincinnati, Chicago and Texas, and Seattle and Salt Lake City. Ironically, according to the Department of ,Transportation's own figures, as the price of gas has tripled over the last five years, and as Amtrak's on-time record has risen to an all time high of 90 percent, travel on some train lines has increased up to 1,000 percent, and on the system nationwide from 20 percent to 30 percent. Reservations during the holidays and the summer are often booked weeks in advance. Some 280 new train cars, costing $300 million, have recently been delivered to Amtrak to meet this increased demand. Mark Schapiro is a correspondent for the Pacific News Service, for which hew wrote this article. _ .__ :. S tyy S ' ' ' ' ll, , : ' 'i \ ,ti ! .j/t / J. ,r-±.. _ t ' / / /%i '' i . I LETTERS TO THE DAILY: Daily neglected Take Back the Night' 7, _ . -- . ti n '' ,,t t i t To the Daily: We found the cursory coverage of the "Take Back the Night" march and rally Friday, April 10, to be highly unprofessional jour- nalism. Relegating the story to page seven and devoting to it only groups, University groups, the Ann Arbor police, and others to meet bi-monthly to share strategies concerning rape prevention. 3. Factual reporting of rapes and publication of rape sites. 4. Establishment of a men's the-next day, April 11. The Daily also neglected to report this. Furthermore, the article did not reflect the flavor of the event nor adequately acknowledge the concerted effort put out by the following organizations: The thank these groups for the in spiring rally and march. We would hope that in the future the' Daily will give proper coverage. to important local events such as this. -Isabel Bradburn UkU.L~~' I a