OPINION
Page 4 Sunday, November 7, 192 The Michigan Daily
Vote tally:Dems cheer, GEO whimpers
E VEN PRESIDENT Reagan's last-minute
dose of television charm couldn't salvage
the election for Republicans. When
Reaganomics was put to the test on Tuesday, a
dissatisfied nation gave the president's
economic policy a failing grade.
Republicans lost big in Congress and in
several gubernatorial races. In Michigan-a
state particularly hard-hit by economic woes-
Republicans went down to defeat in two major
races. Lackluster Democrat James Blanchard
soundly beat his Republican challenger
Richard Headlee (although the obnoxiously
outspoken Headlee had a good go at beating
himself). Blanchard will be the first Democrat
to head the state in some 20 years. In the race"
for U.S. Senate, Democratic incumbent Donald
Riegle easily trounced Republican Philip Rup-
pe.
Close to home, Lana Pollack held the 18th
District State Senate seat for Democrats by
beating Republican Roy Smith. Pollack will
succeed retiring Sen. Ed Pierce. Sarah God-
dard Power and Thomas Roach of the
Democratic slate were re-elected to their
University Regents posts. About the only
Republican, in fact, who made a good local
showing was incumbent Republican Carl Pur-
sell, who retained- his 2nd District
congressional seat.
State voters also decided that the nuclear
freeze (Proposal E) was good, and putting the
state police into the constitution (Proposal B)
was bad. But state voters thought that both
Proposals D and H-two somewhat contradic-
tory proposals on utility rate increase
procedures-were good, creating a big
headache for the state.
The biggest local disappointment in the elec-
A Washtenaw County Circuit Court judge
ruled this week that former University em-
ployee Arthur Arroyo was guilty-and not tem-
porarily insane, as the defense said he
was-when he spread a gasoline over the floor
of the 150-year-old structure and burned it to
the ground.
So now Arroyo will face a sentence of up to
ten years in prison. Judge Henry Conlin said he
should hand down sentence within a month.
The defense said they will probably not ap-
peal the decision.
The case, which lasted two months, was filled
with psychological drama. Arroyo's life history
was aired many times over in the proceedings,
as was his psychological state well before,
during, and immediately after the burning of
the building.
But all that analysis went for naught as the
30-year-old former word-processor was found
guilty of burning the Economics Building the
night before Christmas.
GEO faces the future
T HE UNIVERSITY'S teaching assistants
and graduate staff assistants last week
rejected their proposed contract with the ad-
ministration. In fact, when all the votes were
counted it was clear that the proposal never
had a chance of winning the approval of
the Graduate Employees Organization's rank
and file. But the contract was doomed more by
apathy than by "no" votes.
For a contract to be ratified, more than half
of GEO's 625 voting members must vote in
favor of the contract. But in the voting on the
last contract proposal, which took place
through the mail over two weeks, barely that
number voted at all and only 143 voted in favor
of the contract.
That low turnout raised two significant
questions for some GEO leaders. The first
worry is that it may be nearly impossible to
ratify any contract with that sort of turnout.
Unless the union can motivate more graduate
assistants to'vote in the future, sentiment
would have to run about 95 percent in favor of a
contract to win ratification.
A second worry is that the University ad-
ministration may capitalize on the low turnout
in seeking to have GEO decertified as a union.
When GEO leaders sit down at the bargaining
table they represent 1,600 University TAs and
graduate staff assistants. But only 625 consider
themselves active members. And when GEO
takes its contract proposal back to its rank and
file, only 329 bother to vote.
The administration might be able to point to
the low turnout as proof that GEO does not
have the support of its membership and ask the
state to decertify GEO. Last fall, the Univer-
sity was barred by the state from challenging
GEO's union status for one year. The fact that
that legal ban expires at the end of this month
is naturally unsettling to GEO leaders.
Amidst all the uncertainty about GEO's
future, union leaders are struggling to decide
what their next step will be. In a meeting last
Thursday, GEO members decided to rule out
for the time being the possibility of striking. In-
stead, they voted to elect a new bargaining
team and go back to the table with ad-
ministrators. At the same time, however, other
GEO leaders urged the union to start building
up its strike and legal defense funds just in
case.
The Liddy-Leary ripoff
OLD CONVICTS never die. They just get
together and take their act on the road.
Timothy Leary, a drug guru of the '60s, and
G. Gordon Liddy, that rat-eating Watergate
mastermind, took their schtick, er, debate to
Ann Arbor this week. Thursday night at the
Michigan Theatre, these two fanatical figures
talked about "the power of the individual ver-
sus the power of the state"-and still had time
to take potshots at everything from Jimmy
Carter to Tylenol.
Liddy and Leary had their act down pat. Lid-
dy was the raving lunatic who came off like a
history professor when he spouted Cicero and
Milton. Leary was the humanistic one who
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GEO: From activism to apathy
Blanchard: A Democratic winner
tion was the lack of student participation. The
elections may have been a national referendum
on Regganomics, but they weren't much of
anything for Ann Arbor's campus population.
Only some 30 percent of voters in campus
precincts even bothered with a ballot.
Another Christmas Eve
LAST CHRISTMAS Eve, fire trucks raced
to the Diag in a desperate bid to save the
blazing Economics building. This Christmas
Eve, a grassy patch will cover the spot where
the building once stood. And the man judged
responsible for setting the fire will probably
spend the holidays in jail.
went on and on like a raving lunatic when he
called the Democrats "mongoloid bunglers."
The political debate fell to the wayside as the
one-liners flowed. "Tylenol and LSD are two
examples of mass hysteria," goaded Leary.
Liddy, in response to Leary's praise of Jimmy
Carter, said, "I would love to see a woman
president of the United States the calibre of
Elizabeth I, Catherin3 the Great, or Catherine
de Medici-all of whom had more'"balls than
Jimmy Carter."
Quips, theatrics, and ripoffs-that's what
Liddy and Leary served up Thursday night.
And Ann Arborites, who packed into the
theatre, lapped it up.
The Week, in Review was compiled by
Daily staff writers Andrew Chapman, Julie
Hinds, and David Meyer.
4
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Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Sinclair
Vol. XCIII, No. 52 420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
Another achievement
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W ITH LITTLE fanfare, the
government announced on
Friday that unemployment has hit yet
another post-Depression high. Last
month, 10.4 percent of the nation's
workforce was idle-up from 10.1 per-
cent the month before.
As usual, the administration took the
latest increase in the unemployment
rate as another vindication of the
president's economic program.
President Reagan is "sympathetic and
concerned" about the high unem-
ployment rate, but, according to White
House spokesman Larry Speakes, "It
is the president's belief you cannot
solve unemployment without solving
the causes.''
"The administration," Speakes said,
"has laid a solid foundation for the
creation of jobs and a solution to the
rise and fall of unemployment."
But how? By sapping the once-
vibrant American economy of its
vitality? By increasing the portion of
the GNP devoted to war production
while slashing social programs? By
forcing unemployment-and its
devastating effects-on millions?
The administration argues that the
current level of high unemployment is
just a temporary expedient on the road
to a "better America." The president
says his program is already working,
that all it needs is a little more time.
But that excuse just doesn't wash
anymore. Even David. Ortner, the
Commerce Department's chief
economist, admitted Friday that the
unemployment rate, while already at a
post-Depression high, is bound to go
higher-perhaps as high as 11 percent.
And many economists say there is
nothing in the latest figures to suggest
that the unemployment rate is about to
level off-let alone decline.
The nation doesn't need to give the
Reagan program another chance-
Reaganomics has already had too
much time to start working. What the
nation needs to do now is start coping
with the disaster already wrought by
the president's ideas. It needs a jobs
program; it needs a renewed com-
mitment to social justice. It needs, in
short, the determination to put an end
to the . mad experiment of
Reaganomics.
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LETTERS TO THE DAILY:
4
Engieers Can speak for themselves
EN4TRANCQE QF'
THE TQREAPORS,J,,~ pSyoR
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To the Daily:
I would like to thank Ellen Lin-
dquist for the concern for
engineers she expresses in her
letter ("Engineers are 'human,
too," Daily, Oct. 28). I must,
however, take issue with a few of
her statements, er, misstatemen-
ts.
Lindquist suggests that
engineers are destroying the
world. This idea is too ridiculous
for lengthy discussion, but let me
say that should our civilization
come to the end she envisions, it
will be the fault of politicians, not
engineers. Engineers have
The whole of engineering
achievement is built on in-
novation and change.
Engineering requires ingenuity,
originality, and, yes, thought.
Lindquist, on the other hand,
responded to a headline about a
review of the engineering
humanities department by
predictability yelling "No, don't
cut it out!"-just as she's been
programmed to react to the men-
tion of a review.
I realize that Lindquist must be
very busy with the intense studies
of an English major, and
therefore doesn't have the time to
eliminate duplication of effort,
save the University money, and
give engineers a wider choice of
classes to fill their humanities
requirement. Those of us who
don't consider ourselves robots
would welcome this opportunity
to broa den our education.
If Lindquist was capable of
thought rather than programmed
response, she would realize that
the proposal is an excellent idea.
So thanks for your concern, Ellen,
but please let us speak for our-.
selves. We are capable. 4
-Michael Mitchell
November 4
Krell's OK
To the Daily:
"Nuts" to those attacking C. E.
Krell's review of the Gateway
Trio concert (Daily, Oct. 26). It
was excellently written, enter-
taining-one of the best 'arts
reviews I've ever read in the
Daily. Keep up the good work.
-Randy Schwartz
November 3