A OPINION Sunday, September 19, 19829 i i H i 1 Page 4 The Michigan Daily; ---- ---- 4 State makes promises; Regents play dumb A RE PROMISES from the state made to be broken? That's what University administrators are trying to figure out. In a budget-balancing move this Wednesday, the state legislature passed an executive order that will mean a $7 million loss in state aid to the University. In- cluded in the order, however, is a promise that the money will be paid back next summer-- when' the state has an economic recovery. A recovery? In Michigan? State budget makers promise that the outlook is bound to become rosier next year. But several Univer- ters of the School of Natural Resources took their complaints inside. A 40-member group marched into the Regents room to defend the school, which currently is being reviewed for budget cuts and possible elimination. Those poor Regents. If it's not one thing, it's another. 0 Glow-in-the-dark Daily Photo by DOUG McMAHON Insult and injury: Non-faculty staff protests University pay plan. Sity officials suspect the state is making promises in the dark.' Besides the fact that the state may be in no better position fiscally next summer to give back the money, November's elections may provide an added obstacle to repayment. Once Gov. Milliken retires, the state's new governor may not honor the agreement, legislators fear. Regental bliss I GNORANCE IS BLISS. So goes the old saying, and it applies all too well to the University's chief policy-making body when it comes to morals. - The Regents, who several years ago gave themselves the first and last word on Univer- sity policies, showed last week that they didn't understand how the University handles questions of social responsibility in investment decisions. After the Daily disclosed that the University votes millions of dollars in stock in favor of many preposterous corporate positions, the Regents admitted they didn't know what the University was supporting with its vote. To their surprise, they found out that the votes they control support the production of nuclear bombs and the sale of oil to a racist and op- pressive South African military. So the Regents don't know what they're doing, and the administration doesn't want to do any more than the Regents know, and the University is stuck with advocating bigger and better ways to blow up the world. Regent Thomas Roach, a Democrat from Saline, said he didn't think the Regents should take the time to consider such minor issues as morals and ethics. But a Regent from Detroit, Nellie Varner, called on the administration to begin studying the situation. She asked for a report on how other universities handle ethical matters. Well, Mrs. Varner, here's a hint. Most other academic institutions have set up faculty, student, and/or administrative panels to watch over each school's social responsibilities. _ As for the University of Michigan, the Regen- ts rejected such a committee a few years ago, when they announced that they alone knew enough to decide University policies. So much for infinite wisdom. H ERE IN ANN Arbor, nuclear waste is no big deal. At least, that's what the University claims. Last week, the Nuclear Regulatory Com- mission fined the University $1,500 for ex- ceeding radioactivity discharge limits in a University hospital laboratory. No one on campus seemed especially concer- ned about the matter, which started back in January when the University found it had goofed by discharging too much of some glowing, slightly radioactive stuff. The NRC got a little upset about this disclosure, although they weren't worried about any possible health dangers. The leak was minor, they said, but nonetheless the University was fined $2,000 for its indiscretion. Never an institution to leave well enough alone, the University appealed the fine and had its bill reduced to $1,500. The radioactivity was released in the dispen- sing of NP-59, a drug which is used to treat diseases of the adrenal gland. The University hasn't decided whether or not it will appeal this fine yet, but once again, no one seems too concerned. Oh well, another triumph for the forces of "no nukes." Shut up and drink beer THE IRON GRIP of security is putting a damper on two sacred campus traditions-beer at the game and chatter in the UGLi. Soon, the only people who get blitzed at the stadium may be the players on the field. Fans will no longer be able to carry coolers or large bags. (i.e. six-packs) into the game. This new policy presumably is designed to keep coolers Pair of protests SOMETIMES IT can be lonely at the top, the Regents discovered last Thursday. All they wanted to do was hold a meeting, but two groups had to go and spoil it with a protest. About 90 University employees, including some professors, gathered at Regents Plaza to lash out at the University's proposed pay plan. Under the plan, faculty members get pay hikes, while non-teaching staff members get a salary freeze. Some University employees, however, said the insult was worse than the injury to their pocketbooks. "I think the bitterness comes from the discrimination of the faculty getting raises and the staff not," said one secretary. As staff members gathered outside, suppor- Quiet times ahead for the UGLi. and lushes from clogging up stadium aisles. To keep undergraduates out of the Graduate Library, the UGLi also is clamping down on its own set of rules. Those nasty, noisy under-un- der-classmen, it seems have been pouring into the Grad when the UGLi becomes too rowdy. Stricter rules, the University hopes, will put undergraduates back in their proper place-a quiet UGLi. To keep the UGLi under control, security guards will roam corridors looking for idle talk. If that doesn't work, those rude boysO and girls may be barred from the Grad altogether. There's a perfect solution, however, to both problems. The University should allow studen- ts to bring beer into the UGLi-if they promise to keep quiet during the game. The Week in Review was compiled by Daily staff writers Andrew Chapman, Julie Hinds, Fannie Weinstein, and Barry Witt. N4 I I Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Vol. XCIII, No. 10 420 Maynard St. Anin Arbor, M1 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Fun with nuclear war 4 HE WHOLE thing is just T ludicrous," said Margaret Forbes, head of the Board of Selec- tment in tiny Becket, Conn. "I think it's the best fun we've had in years." The fun took place last weekend, when some 150 residents of Burlington, Conn, decided to put the government's plans for civil defense during nuclear war to a test. The residents-with varying degrees of mirth and mor- bidity-traveled by caravan the 60 miles to Becket, the town slated to host the entire population of Burlington and three other towns in case of nuclear at- tack. It all sounded like a barrel of laughs. Some "evacuees" carried signs which read "Chicken Little was right"; cars in, the caravan were decked out in crepe paper and banners reading "Becket or Burn"; Burlington guests joined their Becket hosts for a parade, a square dance, and a softball game. But in between the fun and games, many people took the time to consider the extreme futility of the gover- nment's plan. One resident pointed out that the only time Becket could ac- commodate four entire communities would be September or October-after the tourist season and before the snow. fall. Becket itself has a civil defense budget totalling the grand sum of $50, but the local authorities haven't even bothered to spend it this year. One participant said the plans were "crazy" and that everybody "from the president on down realizes it." But that was, unfortunately, just the point. Not everyone from the president on down realizes the insanity of preparations for nuclear war; in fact, those who are critical of such plans seem to be having less and less in- fluence on government policy., As the Connecticut protest pointed out, there won't be much of a world left to go back to if a nuclear war occurs. Preparations for surviving such a war are worse than futile-they can ac- tually hurt chances for peace by lulling people into thinking that nuclear war can be won, or at least survived. After a nuclear war, the only thing left will be the charred, radioactive ruins of a civilization too foolish to save itself. Given the prospects, maybe the reaction of some of the residents of Burlington, Conn. is appropriate: Turn the whole thing into a joke while you can. Make a day of it before the bombs fly, and laugh-very nervously. thIs the printed word headed for tevast wasteland? That question, is troubling a large number of people in the book world these days, as giant national bookstore chains carry publishing down a path that many fear leads straight to the television model: applying minimum standards to reap maximum profits. AT STAKE, they say, is the special universe of serious writers, small publishers, in- dependent bookstore owners, and picky consumers who constitute the soul - if not the commercial heart - of reading America. "The chain approach is to push books like you would push Fords and Chevies," says best-selling novelist Rita Mae Brown. "It's all commerce. There's no suggestion of any concern about literature." But that dire verdict is by no means unanimous. Others main- tain that chains actually may enlarge the U.S. reading market, although even they concede that some serious losses will 'be sustained in the process. THERE'S certainly no question that the chains themselves are expanding. Since its inception just 15 years ago, B. Dalton Booksellers, owned by the Min- neapolis-based Dayton-Hudson corporation, has opened 575 stores across the country. Current plans call for another 1,056 outlets by 1987. Waldenbooks, a subsidiary of Los Angeles' Carter Hawley Hale, Inc., presently has 750 outlets and expects to establish 80 to 90 more annually for the next several years. The chain-store trade now ac- counts fornearly.one-fourth of all book sales in America, according to BP Reports, an industry newsletter. By five years from now, predicts Northern Califor- nia Booksellers Association president Andy Ross, "the market share for the chains could easily climb above 50 percent." Independent bookshop owners like Ross, who runs Cody's Books in Berkeley, Calif. say the impact on their business already is devastating. Among other things, the chains can afford publicity, managerial, and support Are small,, indepen den t bookstores doomed? By Frank Viviano publishing houses. He and the Northern California booksellers have taken that charge to federal court with an antitrust suit, alleging that the Hearst Cor- poration's Avon Books Division offered secret, illegal discounts to chain buyers. In sum, competitive disadvan- tages and the sheer proliferation of chain outlets have cut deeply into independent book sales. The problem is most acute in the realm of best-sellers, which traditionally have been the chief source of bookstore profits. Ross. claims the concentration of chain marketing on such books "has left independents with the toughest, least profitable part of the market - the books that sim- ply don't command a large num- ber of buyers.' Between the recession and the chains it is really hard times for the small shops," observes literary agent Michael Larsen. "Rumor has it that 75 percent of the membership of the American Booksellers Association is slowly going out of business." BUT THERE is more in- volved than their livelihoods, say bookshop owners. "From the point of view of the 'culture business,' " argues Ross, national chains threaten to produce 'a monolithic bookselling structure that limits thenmbehr Not all chain franchises con- form to the "limited inventory- mass taste" generalization, however. B. Dalton stocks an average of 25,000 titles in its stores, including a fair sampling of serious literature and high- brow non-fiction. "THE CHAINS aren't really as monolithic in their buying as the stereotype has it," adds Michael Larsen. "At their best, they can be very helpful to small publishers: They give them something to aim for, and a reason to be more efficient. The chains will take a look at a good piece of non-fiction, even if it's untried." Nevertheless, many in the business agree that chain expan- sion dramatically endangers at least one species of author. "When it comes to fiction, anything that's not 'm.o.r.'d - middle-of-the-road- or doesn't already have a track record, is in trouble," says David Godine, a Boston-based publisher. "You can't blame the chains for doing what they do best in terms of their own corporate strategies. There's nothing evil about it. But books that don't have sales promise, and especially new fic- tion, will suffer." The experience of Rita Mae Brown offers a case in point. The chains showed no interest in her novel, "Ruby Fruit Jungle," until it had registered more than 100,000 sales by independent bookstores in five years. The originalpublisher, Daughters Press, then was able to sell rights to Bantam, and 'Ruby Fruit Jungle" cracked the chains. Today, with some one million copies in print, it is a blockbuster success. "MY generation of novelists. may be the last one that had half a chance," remarks Brown, who is in her mid-30s. "There were' still independent bookstores around to take a chance on us." Ultimately, that is what worries so many book people: The consolidation of bookselling under profit-conscious chains could narrow opportunities - making it harder for the new and different to win an audience. Indeed, B. Dalton and Walden- books already are modifying their inventory plans to meet the threat of Crown Books, a newer chain that focuses almost ex- clusively on tried-and-true best sellers, offering discounts which are beginning to eat into the bigger and more versatile chains' profit margins. Book lovers wonder how so many franchise stores can compete for the mere $26 per capita that Americans spend annually on books and still leave room for specialized local bookshops. "Off the record, the chains have been pretty good to me financially," says one New York publisher who prefers to keep his name out of any public debate on their impact. "But sure I'm scared about what's going on. In a business that involves the care and dissemination of ideas, con- solidation is just not good. We'll always need the broadest possible range of ideas, and the largest possible market for them." Viviano wrote this article for Pacific News Service. IAKNOYou REWifLriltuj// CRANU OR I fiii ii i.iif>?