OPINION Page 4 Friday, March 30, 1984 The Michigan Daily .. ......... . .... . .. .. . ... . - I. Breaking th when I suggest that the simple form of By Robert Honigman governance appropriate to a cor- poration is not suitable for a university, and that the checks and feedbacks I often get the feeling when I talk to developed through American political administrators or bureaucrats that I'm thought and experience should be adop- talking to people who live in a bottle. ted - I get back bland stares. "Yes, It's as if all the realities we take for yes," officials seem to say, "that's all granted in the outside world, some.3,000 very well on the Planet Mungo, but it years of human history, the Renaissan- wouldn't work here." ce, World Wars I and II, and the Viet- Ideas that are common in the outside nam- War have never occurred, or world, such as labor unions and elected rather, they may just as well have oc- representatives, are treated as curred in another universe, long ago dangerous and radical in the bottle. In and far away, on the Planet Mungo, the bottle time never changes. It's perhaps, to people called the Zenons always year one. The '60s came and with five legs, green tentacles, and giant went, and now on many campuses, it's saucer eyes. 1950 again and in loco parentis has Inside the bottle there's a different reappeared. Nothing was learned and time and space than outside, and even nothing has changed. different rules of logic. One and one THEN TOO, the light that shines sometimes equal one, or two, or three, through the bottle walls is tinted with depending on which answer is needed to rays that cause strange transfor- justify a decision previously made. mations. In the outside world, for FOR EXAMPLE, when students example, the trustees of most univer- complain about being neglected by the sities are regarded as good natured university, they are told that they are Larries, Moes, and Curlies, political adults who must grow up and accept . hacks appointed to keep an eye on the responsibility for their own education. university and make sure it doesn't But when they ask for a greater voice in turn into a bawdy house. university governance, they are told But inside the bottle, these same men that they are immature and irrespon- and women are a final authority, and sible, and had best leave important their words are beyond rational decisions to others. argument or campus opinion. The san- Perhaps the hardest thing to get ctity of regental bylaws is a parody of across to administrators is that they religion and a tragedy of education, but shouldn't run the place just for them- no official ever seems to notice. And selves. Every policy they announce when faculty members begin to nod seems to have an element of their own their heads and say Hoseas, one won- self-interest in it. The prestige of the ders what kind of education takes place university is connected to their own in the bottle that has "It's so because prestige. There's a commingling of the we say it's so " as a private label on the place, the office, and the person. But side. - - - -- - - I-U I rougn I used to be angry with bottle people, and I wanted once to smash their bot- tle worlds and make them look at things in the clear light of day - to drag them out of their bottles and in front of a court perhaps where their nonsense and arrogance would be quickly exposed. BUT NOW I see that I too live in a bot- tle, of cultureand time and place, and that half the world also passes me by unnoticed and unseen. So I feel kinder towards other bottle dwellers. In fact, I feel sorry for them. They are always trying to make their bottle walls thicker, to shut out more and more of the outside world and to eventually place a cork over the bottle's mouth. I spend my time now trying to persuade them that no human bottle has ever stood the test of time, and that the thicker the glass, the more pain and tragedy people suffer when the bottle is smashed. I tell them, yes, everything does seem to be nicer when you shut out the out- side world. Things run more smoothly, and people are quieter and more docile - while outside the world seems to rage out of control. But the bottle will break. Human history is littered with smashed bottles. All that has survived of the past is a living skin of common decency and trust, and even that is shed from time to time. Sometimes it's terribly clear looking in through the walls of the bottle that students are forgetting what their parents learned at such tremendous cost - how to be free, how to govern themselves, and how to shape their own worlds. Only passive obedience to authority is taught within the bottle, only that the strong make the rules and to the bottle people that the rule-makers are always right. Human experience is preserved in books, like pickled embryos, still-born and unused, while massive studies of minutia and arcane theories float around as reality. In the bottle of forgetting, only peace and quiet are allowed. All dissent and disorder is suppressed, and the individuals with their own histories and personalities are squeezed out under enormous pressure into smooth and perfect ball bearings, to look alike, think alike, and be alike. And this is terrible too, for administrators and faculty members, who, at some time in their lives, will want to redeem and remember their humanity. Yet what is so clear to me, is opaque to all the people within the bottle. The bottle walls have changed with time, letting in less and less light and making the outside world with all its troubles and opportunities look even more distorted and dangerous. So I speak as kindly as I can, tapping on the bottle walls, and sometimes I can see a face pressed against the glass looking at me - but whether it hears what I say or not, I don't know. If I press my ear close to the glass I can hear that wonderful tinny song that bottle people sing, "Everything is won- derful in the bottle." Then the light changes, the bottle walls mist over, and a million light years separate me from those inside. I shrug my green ten- tacles. I blink my saucer eyes. Tomorrow I will try again. Honigman is a University graduate and an attorney in Sterling Heights. I I Daily Photo by TOD WOOLF " ... the bottle will break. Human history is littered with smashed bottles. All that has survived of the past is a living skin of common decency and trust, and even that is shed from time to time." LaBan AIJE ihtau nlla it Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan /; ISNT DlF(Th.rY XAIJrZi P2 Lr I ppw - -I 01J -1 Vol. XCIV-No. 143 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, M1 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Push and shove politics STATE SENATORS have been playing rough this week, pushing and shovinig each other over a funny thing called a tax rollback. The object of the game, as seen by some senators in the Republican-controlled Senate, is to push a plaything called income tax as far back as possible and as soon as possible - without concern for how far it may push the state into the mud. Af- ter the Senate debate Tuesday, one of the Republicans leading the shove back campaign, Sen. Kirby, Holmes, began huffing and puffing saying that the final rollback proposal was "not enough soon enough," and "too little too late." But the Senate proposal, as most House Democrats and the gover- nor can see, is actuallly "more than deadly enough" and "too much too fast." The bill, which must make it through the House, would drop the state income tax from 6.1 percent to 5.35 percent on July 1 and then roll back the rates to 4.6 percent in 1985. This move is not only "devastating" to higher education, but it would force cuts in law enforcement and human services while destroying the state's credit rating and overall financial reputation. Yet one can see why Senator Holmes fin- ds it necessary to be pushy, afterall, he got shoved into an office on a wave of hysteria which thrust two Senate Democrats out of their seats on the basis of one vote' - a vote for Gov. James Blanchard's tax increase which saved the state and this University from financial devastation. Senator Holmes may know little about the state's fiscal condition, and he may care little for this University's long- term health, what he obviously does know a lot about is political oppor- tunism. His opportunity arose and he waded on in. Now he is using scare tac- tics to convince other senators to follow his credo of "one vote, one mouse," as Sen. David Holmes of Detroit characterized it. House Democrats will not be so easily baited by such fears. They will undoubtably look at the longer term ef- fects of such a physical (fiscal?) en- durance test. Those who believe the Senate's proposal is fiscally responsible should recall the state's economic condition less than two years ago - Michigan was known as the basket case of the states. This type of recall thinking might be more effective. Legislators can be expected to act more rationally and thoughtfully when they are not being tugged and pulled during a game which could potentially cut and bruise so many precious sectors of this state. Governor Blanchard has shown that he is flexible and is willing to work con- structively to curb state spending as long as it doesn't damage the state. The Senate's muscle flexing might be impressive to some, but the governor's plan to accelerate the tax rollback by three months to 5.35 percent Jan. 1, 1985 will be a less violent approach to the situation and will insure that there are fewer casualties. V" ILOAL." com 00, r IN, t TE Ofd A 3 4i: ti ... CACCGE f " r f LETTERS TO THE DAILY: Code debate raises good legal issues To the Daily: First, I find great en- couragement is seeing so many people within this University community discussing issues like "reasonableness" and "due process" with regard to the proposed code of non-academic conduct.- People have had to wrestle intellectually, if not really, with the compromises en- demic to a system of justice which attempts to balance the rights of an accused against the right of a community to expect reasonable behavior of its mem- bers. Debate has focused on problems such as who should be responsible to write such a code and whoshould implement it. There has been discussion of what constitutes fair notice as to what behavior will get one into trouble with the code and as to standards of proving alleged wrongdoing. If nothing else, all this debate may have the salutory effect of educating its participants and observers in the values of our due process guarantees within the proposed code will be amended sufficiently so as to remove my many concerns. I am concerned, for example, that the code may be used to ad- dress alleged criminal behavior while the same behavior also can be the subject of criminal court proceedings. This is a form of "double jeopardy" made all the more difficult for me to accept given that one argument that has been consistently advanced f or why the University needs a code is so that the University ad- ministration can avoid having to have students prosecuted in criminal courts with all the con- sequent potential for a life- wrecking criminal record. I also have concerns about the proposed evidentiary standard and the standard for the jury to convict. Other staff and some members of the Board of Directors of Student Legal Services have detailed areas of concern that BLOOM COUNTY they each have with the proposed code. As an organization, there has been spirited debate over the code and we are not of unanimous opinion on this matter. I cer- tainly do not presume to speak for the organization in this letter, but I do believe that the many concerns that have come to light in the weeks of debate over this issue deserve the careful con- sideration by students, the ad- ministration, regents, and all others in the University com- munity. At this juncture all of us need to get beyond the sometimes heated nature of this debate and take a dispassionate look at the real concerns of many sincere in- dividuals that the proposed code would not be a positive attribute of this institution. --Margaret. Nichols March 26 Nichols is the director of Student LegalServices. I R&ALLY D Moc+ hZ1c? _p voTw LISTS, SA .VAOQ G MW .wTA4T 9 0 A L O O X S e Letters and columns represent the opinions of the individual author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the attitudes of the Daily. Unsigned editorials appearing on the left side of this page represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board. by Berke Breathed 1 1 Y65 it Y Hy 6,Or YOUR 1 AP 5 7HeJ iANY CHARNCE IMAT THE 7-rEgATCNC.