OPINION Page 4 Wednesday, February 1, 1984 The Michigan Daily Listening to the By David Spak Beatles then and now I was, as they say, just a freshman finishing my first term at the great University. That term I did most of the things first term freshpersons do: I fell in love, I rarely skipped class, I walked on the "M" in the diag after my first midterm, and I immersed myself in campus life (by joining the Daily). When Thanksgiving break, that last chance to take a deep breath and plunge into the end of the term, rolled around, I returned home to relish the thrill of college life from a slightly distant perspective. While home I treated myself to a visit to Dog Ear, my favorite record store (there's a lot of loyalty in me when it comes to buying records). I bought a couple of albums, but the one that caught my eye, quite by chance, was Double Fantasy by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I hadn't heard any of the songs on the radio, but I did notice that the album 'was copyrighted in 1980. I did not know that it was brand new. I took a liking to Double Fantasy the first time I listened to it, both because I was (and am) an avid Beatle fan and because the songs were typically very good John Lennon tunes., I HAVEN'T listened to that album since early 1981. Twenty or 30 of my fellow Markley residents and I were watching an ex- citing Monday Night Football game between the Miami Dolphins and, I think, either the San Diego Chargers or the New York Jets. Howard Cosell was being Howard Cosell. Frank Gifford was being Frank Gifford, and so on. As the Dolphins were coming back to win the game in overtime, Cosell interrup- ted: "Still this is just a football game," he said. Before I could fathom why he. said that, Cosell told the nation's foot- another. How could four musicians produce so many great songs in such a short time? THEY WERE - and are - the best., Each album I bought after, those first two reaffirmed that. The Beatles musics had such vitality because it was rarely repetitive. John, Paul, George, and, Ringo were innovators. They were mod before mod became fashion; they were psychedelic before psychedelic becama fashion. The Beatles reached highef with each new effort, and then went higher still with the next one. At least three of their albums, Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles (White Album), and Abbey Road, are, I think, not just as good as any other rock and roll album, but better. As four individual parts they were not as good as the whole. John's early post- Beatles music was harsher, Paul's was sappier, George's was more mystical" and Ringo was Ringo. But it was still pretty good. The world, though, wanted more. In early 1980, U Thant, then the secretary general of the United Nations, asked John to rejoin his ex-Beatles for a one'- time concert for world peace. Refusing the invitation, Lennon said, "Haven't we done enough already?" Yes, they have. So I will go back to. my apartment to listen to Elvis Costello, the Talking Heads, Squeeze, or Joe Jackson - good music. Once in a while I'll be in the mood for Abbey: Road (I listen to "Here Comes the Sun" after my last final every term) or the White Album. Maybe someday I'll listen to Double Fantasy again -- after 'raduation or after I go to Dog Ear during spring°4 vacation to buy a couple of albums.,. t Maybe one of those albums will be Milk and Honey. ' The songs on The Beatles 1962-1966 and The Beatles 1967-1970 are some of the could almost end the collection there, if not for some of the Beatles' other best of the best rock and roll tunes, period. Fifty-four of them by one group of albums. four musicians just might be the best way to begin an album collection. You ball fanatics that John Lennon had been shot outside his home in New York. Now, just over three years later, I'm in the midst of my last term as an un- dergraduate at the great University. I have done most of those things college students do: I fell in love some more, I skipped class a lot more, I passed on the myth of the "M" in the diag, and I con- tinued to immerse myself in the Daily. I ALSO listened to a good deal of music; I hear John Lennon's last six songs have been released on- a new album, Milk and Honey. I haven't heard the album, though I did hear one of the songs on the radio the other day. The song sounded much like Lennon's music on Double Fantasy - good, solid States. Twenty years ago, just after one generation lost its heroic young president, the next generation found its young heroes. More so than any other single cultural influence, the Beatles shaped their decade and the one-and-a- half to follow. It's a tribute to their talent and the universality of their, last played as one. People like myself, too young to have any real memories of the Beatles as a group while they were still a group, can appreciate their music as someone 15 years older. The first two albums I owned were, in fact, Beatles albums, the 1962-1966 an- thology and the 1967-1970 anthology. John Lennon music. This month is the2 the Beatles' invas' V I music that Beatles music still gets They include everything from "I Wan- 20th anniversary of tremendous play on radio stations all na Hold Your Hand" to "The Long and Spak is Opinion page co-editor off ion of the United over the world 14 years after the group Winding Road," one classic after, the Daily. Stewart_ Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Vol. XCIV-No. 101 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Fighting for the foundation WHEN YOU BUILD a house you want to make the foundation as strong as possible - so strong it can weather the worst of storms. If your housemate started chiseling away at that foundation, you'd probably get up- set and fight back. The foundation of the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment, similarly is being chiseled away, yet no one seems to be putting up much of a fight for it. The attackers are coming from various corners, and they are at- tacking different groups protected by the guarantees of the First Amen- dment.. Many conservatives and liberals are on an offensive against alleged in- discretions of the media. Religious groups and concerned parents are fighting to change public high school texts and curricula. Censors soon may force government employees to get approval for any writing prior to publication. What is particularly disturbing, however, is that the attacks are being levelled by people who say they respect the same constitution that contains the First Amendment. Though the Reagan administration's move to bar the media from Grenada during the .first few days of the in- vasion is the most glaring blow to the First Amendment, it is indicative of a broader crackdown on the First Amendment. And, in a surprising number of instances, the courts have been helping such actions along: " In New Mexico, the state supreme court refused to consider an appeal of a photographer's trespassing conviction. The photographer and several other " In Churchill, Tenn., fundamen- talists are attacking the entire public high school curriculum primarily because they believe it is secular. " Books such as Huckleberry Finn, Catch-22, and Slaughterhouse Five are being taken off public high school library shelves because they contain "explicit" language or racist charac- terizations. In one case, a book with an explicit detailing of sexual intercourse was not banned outright, but the offen- sive pages were torn out of the copies of the book. " National Security Decision Direc- tive 84 (a coincidence of number too obvious not to note) would, if it goes in- to effect, require more than 127,500 government employees to submit everything they write for the rest of their lives to censors. The employees have access to "classified" infor- mation. - Why courts, government agencies, and citizens' groups are attacking these information sources so vociferously is a mystery, especially when you consider that the fundamen- tal principle behind the First Amen- dment is insuring that all forms of in- formation are available as a source of enrichment for this society. Certainly some of that information and some of those ideas are going to be disagreeable to some people. The ideas in Mein Kampf are repulsive; the Communist Manifesto may be an- tithetical to the premises of a free and open society. But that does not mean those ideas should not be available. First Amendment absolutists like former Supreme Court Justice Hugo AV . r . '"1 "IN~~' Are recalls No veinbe By Alex Kotlowitz LANSING - While all eyes are focused on next month's New Hampshireprimaryand' Iowa caucuses, the real bellwether of the national political mood may be in Michigan. A growing tax revolt here could give Republicans a new foothold among the traditionally Democraticblue-collar union voters, as in 1980. This past fall, two Democratic senators were recalled because of their votes to increase the state income tax fromr4.6 to 6.35 per- cent. They are the first legislators ever recalled in Michigan. They probably won't be' the last. Democratic Gov. Jim Blanchard and 16 other legislators, 14 of whom are Democrats, have been targeted for future recall campaigns. THE TWO recalled senators district includes Dearborn, a solidly Democratic working-class city. "The Democrats have traditionally relied on the union membership as a base. You can't do that now," says state Sen. Lana Pollock (D-Ann Arbor), one of those targeted for recall. "That is a significant shift, and the Democratic Party better take notice of it." The suburban working class doesn't want to subsidize the very inner city they abandoned, con- tends Zolton Ferency, who chaired the Michigan Democratic Party in the 1960s. "The amount of taxes is not the issue, it's how the money is being spent," he says. IN FACT, two weeks after recalling their state senator for BLOOM COUNTY favoring tax increases, voters in one district passed a property tax boost to help pay for their school. They were willing to pay more taxes to improve their schools but not to the state where, says one recall Jeaders, "They're throwing money away." Liberal Democrats are angry and resentful that their party has not taken a stronger stand defen- ding government activism. "We don't have a vision anymore," laments one Democrat, state Rep. David Hollister, who is so frustrated that he is considering retiring from politics after five terms in office. "We are a party that believes government has a legitimate role to redistribute therwealth, to put together a more equitable society," asserts Hollister, 41.. skey? "But we haven't articulated it."' The Michigan Democratic par- ty, he says, is in retreat. In the two recall campaigns, neither state senator met the tax.issue head on. Instead, they argued to their constituents that it was un- fair to judge a politican on one vote. The legislative recalls have made the Democrats more timid and conservative and the Republicans more outspoken and ideologically cohesive. That could lay a base among white blue-collar union members who proved to be instrumental in elec- ting Ronald Reagan in 1980. Kot/o witz, a free-lance reporter, wrote this article for the Pacific News Service. by Berke Breathed 1 I ._ .