4 OPINION Page 4 Sunday, January 30, 1983 The Michigan Daily NR students: Revolutionary tactics T HE ACTS of desperate men are sometimesothe Regents in November 1981. Although some crazed. Certainly those School of Natural But you should have seen them last week. Regents have expressed dissatisfaction with Resources students feeling the cold steel of the Pacing and fretting. That's when they thought the proposal, Regent Deane Baker admitted University's budget axe appear to be growing the University might lose as much as $13 that a little University triage has already been irrational. million in the state's reshuffling. During all of batted around. Baker said the University had that fiscal terror, President Harold Shapiro, promised to consider enrollment reductions For them, the battle against the huge and caught during a moment of particular suggested by the state in exchange for state erfladmiistration, likethat of hebooy weakness, admitted that the concern made him support of another critical patient - the rdpill re nry srugle ag quite excited." Replacement Hospital project. repression in Central America, looms huge _____________________ before their meek, yet determined, proletarian eyes. Since then, however, Gov. James Blanchard Gimme shelter backed away from earlier forecasts of doom Like the freedom fighters in Nicaragua and and proposed a 1.5 percent hike in the state's the terrorist peasants of Cuba, the students in income tax. The money from that hike, he told OU CAN'T always get what you want, natural resources have decided to defer their relieved administrators, would cushion cut- especially when renting in Ann Arbor. But tuition checks in a move which defies the very backs in higher education. He'll still have to this year it seems students may be able to get spiritual foundation of our university. They will trim $25 million from the state's colleges and what they need. universities, but only $5 million will have tow t n Scome from the University. The housing market was shattered by a more Blanchard's plan still has to be approved. So than 13 percent vacancy rate and landlords are University administrators are likely to be a lit- under the thumbs of student renters. Univer- te edgy until the final okay comes through. But sity Director of Off-Campus Housing Jo Rui at least the frenzy has subsided for a while in sey says students have time on their side whe edm t frny picking out next year's living quarters. And the administration building. landlords won't be too proud to beg students to sign their leases. They may have to come up Dear doctor with incentives to convince students to spend the nights together at their rental units. earmark their revolutionary checks for only Shapiro: Anxiety attack Frye: A 'cutting' cure the school's general fund, not that of the tyran- F'I HE MEDICAL history of the patient has Though landlords are more hesitant this year nical University. been bleak for the past four years. An en- to announce their rates, eight management TemyW orried about croaching malaise - whose symptoms in- Although the cure may be painful to students companies said they haven't raised their prices They may say in the words of that great cluded dwindling federal and state support - with hopes of attending medical school, it's from last year. So, despite most students' revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, "defer and resulted in a 15 percent budgetectomy. become a fait accompli for medical schools meager budgets, the housing market has become mighty, write-off tuition checks to the throughout the state. Wayne State University become a beggar's banquet. school's general fund and topple the ancient T HE UNIVERSITY'S top administrators, And now, the prognosis for the University has set 18 percent for its enrollment reduction and murderous regime of the University exciteable people that they are, are calm medical school looks grim. The deterioration in goal, while Michigan State University has bureaucrats." again now. Michigan's new governor has academic quality cannot be checked, school of- decided to curtail enrollment and call off an assured them that he does not want to hack: ficials claim, without some drastic measures. expansion project. All this trimming down has The Week in Review was compiled by Like many revolutionary movements,away wildly at their school. He told them that been done at the prodding of state officials, who Daily News Editor Andrew Chapman, ;however, the struggle of the natural resources aa idya hi col etl hmta students ses estied o te crusd beah he wants to cut the University's state ap- The only way to save the patient? A little predict a doctor surplus in the state by 1999. Student Affairs Editor Ann Marie Fazio; the huge legal apparatus which is at the beck propritin s only about $5 million. That's surgery - in the form of a 25 percent Vice President for Academic Affairs Billy Opinion Page Editor Julie Hinds, and gnd c istttinlze ei !good news to administrators and it's made enrollment cutV. F rei ntfoges ademioss irs lpision-Cage nandcal ofinsituionlizd Aeria !1 !! ,Frye first suggested the possible reductions to Editor-in-Chief David Meyer. 01 thm apygan I 4 4 4 I Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Wasserman Vol. XCIII, No. 99 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board PEOPLE WORY NEEDLESSLY Aour kAN A~Cu ENtPRL NUCLEAR WAR 1"E C- u. SOVIETo?-SN L LJA-Tg 'TCANWIoGoY- r / MACRIKSE ,TRR PUT OAN ON' TH~E MOOW WSENT SNTa- LITES INTo FiNDLESS oRN f - /INOUNw ,- ERH o 4~~ /= 04Dsp ~f 14 t Toward better trains 4 ABOUT 100 people gathered at Ann Arbor's new train depot yester- day, celebrating the latest addition to Amtrak's empire. At about the same tine in Washington D.C., hundreds of bureaucrats and consultants were con- templating the 1984 budget - and its newest round of cuts for the nation's passenger rail service. The'disparity is not new; in fact, if anything, it's typical. Since its creation iq 1971, Amtrak has been treated by the government as a kind of parasite - a legacy which must be subsidized to ap- pease eccentric train buffs. The ser- vice seldom has been recognized for what it is: a viable, economically sound transportation system. Instead, Amtrak has languished at the hands of the budget-cutters. Even in the best years - before the Reagan administration - Amtrak has received inadequate subsidies, and under the Reagan regime, things have been even worse. At the beginning of the Reagan administration, Amtrak supporters, narrowly defeated an unconscionable, administration-backed proposal which Would have wiped out more than 90 percent of all long-distance passenger rail service in the United States. Members of the Reagan ad- ministration, in urging cuts to Amtrak, insist that the free market has declared trains obsolete. They argue that American consumers have swit- ihed to other forms of transportation because they are faster or more economical, and that trains are just another victim of innovation and technological development. But the administration's analysis is seriously flawed on a number of major points. First, a free market has not existed in the nation's transportation sector for decades. American tax- payers provide billions and billions in subsidies to the modes of transpor- tation which compete with the trains. Various governments pay for nearly all of the roads in the United States; railroads, including Amtrak, are responsible for maintaining their own roadbeds with relatively little tax sup- port. In addition, many expensive facilities for air travel - such as radar installations, airports, air traffic con- trollers, and air safety programs - are paid for through taxes; railroads have to depend on revenues to cover the costs of their facilities. Second, in the context of today's energy shortage, rail travel makes more sense than ever. Per passenger mile, rail travel is more efficient than planes, buses, or private automobiles. It just doesn't make sense, then, to continue to cut the already modest subsidy to a program which has enor- mous potential to give Americans a fast and efficient alternative mode of transportation. No one suggests, of course, that the nation should try to return to the 1930s, when railroads crisscrossed every county in the nation. No one suggests a return to the days when, in Iowa, no location in the state was more than 12 miles from a railroad grade. No one suggests a return to the days when the lonesome whistle heralded the inexorable march of a thundering locomotive across the rolling prairie.' What we do suggest, however, is a wise and prudent policy of building the nation's rail infrastructure. In its own way, the dedication yesterday of the, new Ann Arbor depot was a step in that direction. The new station, while devoid of the charm and character of the old depot building, is large, clean, and efficient - well-suited to the growing needs of the area for rail tran- sportation. It may be classified as a "bodice ripper" or "sweet," depending on how much sex is tucked between its covers, but the American romance novel no longer is considered lowbrow pulp. Suddenly a mainstay of the U.S. publishing industry, roman- ces also may be a good barometer of what Americans think-and fantasize-about their personal lives. U.S. publishers shunned the romance genre as cheap trash until about three years ago, when they noticed that a small Canadian publishing house named Harlequin had built an empire on romances that exten- ded to 18 countries. EAGER TO share the market, American publishers jumped in. By 1981, romance accounted for 45 percent of all U.S. paperback sales, and Publisher's Weekly estimated that some 20 million American women read romance novels. The "average reader," according to the magazine, buys 20 to 30 of the books per month. The basic ingredients of all romances are the same: Girl meets boy, they fall in love, develop conflicts, overcome the conflicts and end up happily together. Beyond this, the possible number of variations is infinite-as long as there is that most essential of elements: the happy ending. Until recently, American romances followed the original Harlequin formula, which told the story of an 18-year-old English virgin who falls in love with a tall, dark and rich con- tinental Adonis while on vacation in an exotic location such as Venice, the Caribbean or Moroc- co. There is no premarital sex, and even the marital variety is confined to the reader's The American romance novel: Sweet, savage pro fit By George Paul Csicsery revolution," would respond to the glamour of romance combined with a healthy dose of sensuality. When Dell launched its Ecstasy line in 1980, the books included passionate love scenes, heroines over 25, minorities, and male heroes who were less than perfect millionaires-one was a Vietnam vet who had lost an arm. Ecstasy books shot up to rank among the four best-selling romance lines, and other publishers quickly joined the trend to inject more "realism" into their romances. Soon older, more sexually experinced women with serious professions began to appear, much to the satisfaction of many readers. The latest line to push at the boundary between fantasy and reality is Ballan- tine's Love & Life series. In- troduced this July, Love & Life says it will feature "heroines aged 28 to 45 and written without formula plots. Love & Life will 10 years ago. They couldn't relate to the contrived plots." With more specialized lines ap- pearing to meet every type of romance readers' needs, the in- dustry has mushroomed. There now are more than 150 new romance titles published every month, and several more new lines will appear before the end of this year. All of this has created a bonan- za for professional writers, and an opportunity to break in for the neophyte. With publishers willing to pay advances of bet- ween $1,500 and $7,500 for a first novel, thousands of aspiring novelists have emerged from the woodword. They are driven by dreams of becoming another Janet Dailey-the secretarial school graduate who has published 72 books since 1976 and now ranks among the top four best-selling authors of all time. As one New York editor Rita Clay Estrada, who has read 7,822 romances, written and sold eight, and was the first president of the RWA, says "the macho man is practically dead and buried. He was created by male 4 writers anyway." For now at least, publishers and writers agree that women want a more sensitive male hero who can respect a woman's professional life. In a current example, a man leaves his job and home city to be near his love; the lovers agree the woman's career is more important than his. In romance, that is something that could not have 4 happened five years ago. Yet it is a reflection of real life situations faced by men and women today. While the publishing industry and most writers are excited about more realism in romance, and see it as an opportunity to im- prove the romance genre's lowbrow image, there are signs that not all readers are happy about the influx of sex, realistic men and the other trappings of the day-to-day world they know all too well. For these disgrun- tled readers, too much reality means no escape and may disrupt the soothing effect of the romantic fantasy. As author Dot- ti Corcoran explains: "You'ved got the baby down for a nap. You've got dirty diapers. The house hasn't been cleaned. You need that half hour to completely obliterate the chaos around you." BARBARA =KEENAN, publisher of Affaire de Coeur, one of several newsletters reviewing romances, doesn't like the sex incidents, particularly when they involve rape or promiscuity. "I don't sleep around," she says, "and I don't want my heroines sleeping around. I don't like them