A OPINION Tuesday, November 11, 1980 The Michigan Daily ., 4 It's OK! This isn't about the election! Quick, now: It's 11:28 a.m.-What period is it? Unless you're a freshperson straight out of high school, you're probably stumbling right now. Let's see.. . 11A28 ... that's just about the time I started staring at the clock, counting the minutes until English class would be over... I had English fourth period... Lunch started at 11:50. . . and then I had a free period . . I think periods are about the most destruc- tive notion high school instills in anybody. For Wi tticisms By Howard Witt car all afternoon. Fortunately, the period neurosis wears off once you reach college, where you can spring ahead and fall back normally. Ah, high school-that wonderful world of tur- nabout dances, going steady, and pig fetuses in formaldehyde bottles. - Biology. God, how I hated that class. I could probably, tell a petri dish from Corningware, but I wouldn't know an endoplasmic reticulum if it hit me in the face. AS MUCH AS I resisted learning anything in biology class, I was taught one important adolescent lesson: Never let your peers know you hate dissecting things. We were pulling apart the femurs of giant, 8-inch long African cockroaches one day, and the sight of those huge, black, crispy, dead insects was causing my cafeteria lunch to churn within me. I made the foolish mistake of wincing when the teacher dropped my cockroach in front of me and it bounced into my lap. That wince, easily detec- ted by my lab partner, brought a hail of "Chicken! Chicken!" my way, followed by a hail of African cockroaches. Chemistry was about as bad as biology. We had a sadistic chemistry teacher who would sneak up behind us as we were pipeting some caustic acid and scream "Boo!" (Pipets, for you non pre-meds, are long glass tubes into which you suck liquids.) - My high school had two cafeterias as the crow flies-the North Cafeteria and the South Cafeteria. During my freshman and sophomore years, both were rancid, stuffy rooms decorated in 1950s institutional style. The North Cafeteria was characterized by its food-bedecked acoustical ceiling tiles-we used to make "Ketchup Surprise" by throwing ket- chup-soaked napkins straight upward, creating pop art ceiling designs. The South Cafeteria was known for its food-bedecked brick wall. THEY REMODELED the cafeterias in my junior year, replacing the mental-institution look with 1970s fake wood formica tables of various shapes. But it was only a cosmetic change. The cafeterias still smelled like rotting milk. We still launched "Ketchup Surprises." Each year my high school had a Charity Drive. Now, to get the full flavor of that beneficent event, you must understand that my high school is peopled with the children of wealthy Jews-they comprise about two-thirds of the student body. Our Homecoming Queen was selected from among dozens of Jewish American Princesses. It was always a problem every year thinking of recipients for our charity. We usually donated the proceeds to the American, Cancer Society or the Muscular Dystrophy Association or some other traditional cause. I think someone once suggested donating the funds to combat anorexia nervosa, a popular disease among the princesses. RAISING THE money was less of a problem. When car washes bombed because nobody wanted to get his or her topsiders wet or when Mah-jongg marathons failed, we used the sure- fire Homeroom Collection Method: We all brought checks from our parents. And then there was the physical education' department, that bastion of officially san- ctioned brutality, stupidity, and machismo. We were instructed in the physical graces not by teachers, but by "coaches." "Call me Coach," they all would say. It was simpler for them. The coaches were a diverse lot-one was a linguist, skilled in several languages; one was skilled in karate; one had been an army drill sergeant. But they all had a lot in common: Each coached some team sport, each had taught driver's education at some point in his career, and each delighted in allowing the least possible time to shower and dress at the end of gym periods. ALL OF THE coaches saw it as their calling in life to teach their adolescent charges how to be men. Men ran 50 laps and begged for more. Men lifted weights to bloat their muscles so they couldn't bend their arms. Men never had "doctor's notes" that excused them from a day's physical activities. ("I don't care about the note. How do I know you have a broken leg?" one coach asked a student wearing an ankle-to-thigh cast.) Men didn't need to dry their,4 hair after a shower. (That last masculine requirement changed in my senior year, when two electric hand dryers were installed at head-height near the showers.) The macho emphasis carried over into the swimming pool. Until the mid-1970s, men at my high school swam without the benefit of trunks through the warm, gently caressing water. Af- ter numerous problems arose, however, trunks were provided. THE SHOWER ROOM before and after swimming sessions was a very masculine, place. Imagine 50 naked men jockeying for 30 showerheads while looking only at the floor or the ceiling. The terror of a problem popping up. was acute, what with hot water and cold water# and warm drafts and cool drafts all playing, havoc with our bodies. It all kind of makes you want to run back and. visit your old high school. And forget your. problems. Howard Witt is the co-editor of the Daily's' Opinion page. His column appears every Tuesday. four years of your life, you are poisoned to think in 40-minute intervals. If you sleep late, it's not "Oh, damn it! It's 10:30!," it's "Oh dann it! It's Third Period!" NORMAL CLOCK time loses its meaning. Woe to the unthinking mother who tells her high school student she will pick him up at. 2:15 p.m. for his dentist appointment and neglects to translate that scheduled rendezvous into period time-she'll be waiting out front in the i :. Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Higgins Vol. XCI, No. 59 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, M1 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Strict secrecy could bring "more CIA-brand trouble i3 x HE NEW UNITED States Senate will come about as close to being equally divided along party lines as it popsibly could: 52-48 Republican. Thpugh the numbers seem to be very close-and indeed, in many areas there is likely to be much healthy par- tisan squabbling-there is one matter on which the senators and legislative staffers of both parties seem to be in getieral agreement: They believe the netv Senate is likely to drop regulations that currently restrict the activities and secrecy of the Central Intelligence Agency. How soon we forget. Endless problems have been caused by giving the CIA the freedom to undertake its programs abroad without supervision or, accountability. Little has been gained. Secrecy among the ranks of the intelligence community has only ptevented more moderate and sensible public officials from assessing the v ue of our clandestine schemes. The problem does not stem from the Agency's intelligence operations, stfictly speaking. The United States does have operatives in both friendly ard hostile countries around the world, arid they in turn have snoops sprinkled around the States. That in itself has not caused much of a problem, although Iran has provided one obvious excep- tion. But the other side of the Agency's work is its tampering with the sovereignty of foreign governments, a type of endeavor at which it is unfor- tunately very experienced. The fiasco at the Bay of Pigs was only the best- known of CIA attempts to remove a popular government from power. Had the cover of secrecy been "blown" on it, one of the more embarrassing and detrimental chapters of American history might never have made the textbooks. One provision of the bills likely to be shuffled around Congress next year is particularly frightening. Under the bill, private citizens who come by in- formation about covert intelligence agents-even information culled from nonclassified material-would be sub- ject to prosecution if they made any revelations. If that notion is any indication of the general tenor of respect which will be given First Amendment liberties un- der the new president and Congress, ours will be a sorry lot indeed. LETTERS TO THE DAILY: Treatment of Shah 's son appalling '4 To the Daily: I "do-it-daily"-read The Michigan Daily, that is, and I have generally been impressed with the quality of your editorial comments, but I was appalled by your treatment of the Shah's son (Daily, November 1). As a newspaper editor myself, I'm very concerned with the abuse of media power, intentional or otherwise. Your uncharac- teristically irresponsible attitude in this commentary is a disser- vice to both your readership and yourselves. You portray the Shah only as'a "ruthless dictator," implying that he is some kind of monster and inferring that he must only be, capable of conceiving and raising a monster. In reality, history has yet to determine the villainy or greatness of the Shah, although Iran was clearly doing much better under his brand of leadership than it's been doing since (international terrorism, war, social chaos, and economic disaster). But my purpose is in no way to defend the Shah a sticky, if not futile, endeavor); rather, to ask rhetorically, isn't it possible that his son is a human being? Reza Pahlavi has shared his anguish over the devastation of his homeland and the misery his countrymen are enduring, pledging his loyalty to therp. While you sit snickering cynically at this young man, millions of Iranians respond with renewed hope that someone can bring an end to thissperiod of horror. Not all Iranians are terrorists or religious fanatics; rather, they are a proud people locked in the challenge of preserving their rich Islamic traditions while assuming their rightful position as arespected nation in a modern world community. Blending tradition with modernization is no easy task, profoundly elucidated through the lessons of Lenin, Mao, and Pol Pot. Your stereotypical stripping away of the humanity of the Shah's son is the same kind of mentality rapists have in justifying their attacks on women ("they all want it anyway"), Klan members have to justify lynching black people, and Nazis had when incinerating Jews. Our nationprides itself in laws and traditions respecting the rights of individuals, like "due process," which assumes innoc- ence until proven guilty. Are you somehow "above" the con- Pigeon kill To the Daily: "Pigeons pose a very definite public health menace to humans, and especially to the University's staff members who work near areas with pigeon droppings (Daily, November 6)." The an- swer to the pigeon problem as the speaker sees it is to kill them all. Oddly enough, his name is (University occupational safety officer William) Joy. Of course there are risks. There are risks every time one gets away from man's paranoid and ultra-sterile world to explore nature. The squirrels on campus could bite and cause disease, therefore I suggest we kill them, too. The fall trees, being so beautiful that they cause people to stare and run into each other, are a very definite public health menace. l recommend that we cut them down. Perhaps we could stitutional law of our land? In times of despair, people look for hope in unlikely places. America is now looking to Ronald Reagan. Iranians may just be looking to the young Pahlavi. -Nate Windman Editor World Student Times November 5 rj The World Student Times is affiliated with the Unification Church. pave the Diag. No, on second thought, the cracks in the pavement could collect debrisw of host organisms. Glass would be a bet- ter choice; it is pleasantly sterile: We could have fountains of' cleansing fluid to help rid the" Diag of disease - a veritable" fountain of youth. Think of it!' Plastic bubble suits could be issued to incoming freshmen,- Then, maybe, we can rid our selves of the disease-ridden splendor of nature. Something that Dr. Lewis Thomas wrote in an essay in The Lives of a Cell applies to this killing of our pigeons. "It says something about our century, our attitude toward life, our ob- session with disease and death, our human chauvinism." -Randy Wirth November 6 4 An SYL letter guide To the Daily: Gee whiz, it's really great to hear that the Symbionese Youth League or whatever they call themselves supports the two recently-arrested Daily editors (Daily, November 5). With the help of all the Commie Clubbers the people can beat back every derlines. NOW I KNOW THAT DOESN'T WORK!!! JUST LIKE THE SYL I MUST EXPRESS MYSELF BY HITTING THE SHIFT LOCK AND POUNDING AWAY!!!!!! From many observations, the SYL's pattern emerges: !-We're not too happy about * Li I4~~~ENY X~2 U I U ~