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July 29, 1981 - Image 4

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Michigan Daily, 1981-07-29

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4

Opinion
Page 4 Wednesday, July 29, 1981 The Michigan Daily

The Michigan Daily
Vol. XCI, No. 50-S
Ninety Years of Editorial Freedom
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan
Hip, hip, hooray!
T HREE CHEERS for the Coastal Zone
Management Act of 1972, which protects
American states from dangerous ventures of
the federal government.
Three cheers for the citizenry and gover-
nment of California, and for many national
environmental groups, which have teamed up
and implemented the act to protect the scenic
and ecologically delicate state shoreline.
Three cheers for Federal Judge Mariana
Pfaelzer, who sided with the state and the
act Monday, and nixed a James Watt-
Department of Interior plan to auction off
thousands of these off-shore California acres.
And while we're at it, let's toast the interior
secretary himself-and his doomed
proposal-for uniting our country's
beleaguered defenders of the environment,
states' rights, and anticorporate common sen-
se. Had they orchestrated a reckless and futile
federal effort themselves, just for the fun of it,
they couldn't have outdone Watt. The man
seemed to be playing devil's advocate all
along.
This entire issue, ludicrously antithetical to
the Reagan administration's war on the
federal government's power, resulted in a
wonderfully one-sided schism. Watt's
arrogance in promoting this plan-which
would'have opened 29 tracts of Santa Maria
Basin land for auction, while giving the green
light for hundreds more in the
future-angered citizens at every turn. The
California state leaders were furious over
Watt's failure to consult them, as were the
representatives of 19 local governments.
Fishing and tourist industry leaders, citing
billions of dollars in (non-destructive) revenue
last year, and citing the incalculable effects of
an oil spill, were also enraged. Environmental
groups pegged this as a critical-and sur-
mountable-battle early on.
All of this opposition, with snowballing in-
tensity, challenged Watt and his lone ally, the
Western Oil and Gas Association.
But wait, now for the real kicker! The U.S.
Geological Survey estimated that the
challenged tracts contained approximately 40
million barrels of oil-about three days of
national energy consumption. Meanwhile,
more than 500 similar tracts, already leased
by the federal government in other areas,
have yet to be explored because of their
limited prospects.
Heck, this plan didn't even make good
ecomonic sense, which was the secretary's
only credible rationale.

The silly season

By Christopher Potter
Of all the anti-think crusades
currently being waged by mem-
bers of America's refurbished
ultra-right, sex predictably rears
its licentious libido through more
than a few of them. This year has
witnessed invigorated
eradication movements against
gay rights, sex education, and-a
bit surprisingly-pornography.
Anti-smut has remained a less
than passionate issue in recent
years. It's not that the moral
watchdogs amongus have sof-
tened to the Playboy
Philosophy-it's just that three
decades of adverse Supreme
Court rulings had until recently
enervated most pro-censorship
campaigns.
NO LONGER. The Reagan era
seems to be triggering
celebrations of cretinism all over
America, and anti-filth once
again ranks among the voguest of
blue-pencil vogues. The First
Amendment once again finds it-
self besieged on all fronts, from
magazine rack to movie screen to
library bookshelf.
Trendiest among our new
magistrate of virtue is one Rev.
Donald Wildmon, whose fledging
National Federation for Decency
monitors TV programs, than puts
the knock on sponsors of offen-
ding shows-all in the name of
forever yanking sex and violence
from the airwaves.
This once-obscure Mississippi
Baptist minister recently gained
legitimacy by coercing no less
than the chairman of Proctor &
Gamble to grovel at his feet in
response to a threatened national
product boycott over dirty TV
shows. This heady exercise in
dragon-slaying might well satisfy
an ordinary man, yet Wildmon
lusts for new malfeasors. In his
monthly magazine column,
"Media Alert," he confies a
startling revelation from one of
his readers:
" 'When I saw Part I (of a
Masterpiece Theatre presen-
tation of Zola's Therese
Racquin, I saw the full length of
entire bodies of two people
engaged in intercourse, the
woman on top with only her back
side showing: .. '
"WHEN I RECEIVED that let-
ter, I found it hard to believe,"
Wildmon confesses. "But, lo and
behold, the next day two more
letters came in confirming what
the first had said. 'After a few
minutes into the film,' one writer
wrote, 'with no warning what-
soever, a scene showed a man
and woman totally naked in an
explicit act of for-
nication . . . there was actual,
visible nudity and passionate
bedrrom scenes!"
Poor Zola. A centurylaterand
still scandalizing decent-minded

Part 11
folks. Like the outraged Parisian HOW FAR WILL it extend?
upper crust who predated him, Even the doctrinaire conser-
Wildmon wields the crusader's vatives of the Reagan White
sword of retribution: "Some House must, like columnist
bureaucrat took your money, in Kilpatrick, be feeling a bit un-
the name of art, and decided that nerved by the war whoops of their
all Americans should get first- addled comrades-in-arms out-
hand, visible knowhow about the side. For all the brute reality of
anamalistic (sic) side of man. the administration's economic
"Without your opinion," the revolution, the Reagan team
pastor grimly warns, "the folks remains muted in its pursuit of
at PBS will be free to bring us new social structures; most af-
more such programs in the visors and cabinet members
future . . . write to your senators seem content with the notion that
and your congressman, and ask tax reform is more crucial
them to check with the respon- national interest than is con-
sible people at PBS." And, while' sorship of Charlie's A ngels.
you're at it, "'Mobil would be Yet Reagan & Co. persist in
glad to have your thoughts too." perpetuating the crusader's
r,tOr !laorail Moguls
Arc not out to
Muliu i yt you stut,
tuliat on rrab,
:And erurlthing
1tiou uitul.
(Like a kid with a balloon, Wild- image; they adore posturing in a
mon delights in hoisting again mode of theorist purity even as
and again the spectre of they dilute much of the New
economic reprisal). Right's social litany. Such official
"WHAT'S NEXT on PBS?" he attitudinizing serves as a green
angrily concludes. "Perhaps two light for the true believers, who
homosexuals?" (Dare I write the joyfully wield their avenging
good parson that a 1978 PBS axes under the silent blessings of
production of Harold Pinters The the White House.
Collection dealt with three Is it thus conceivable the
homosexuals-played by no less protocol of mindlessness may
than Laurence Olivier, Alan someday triumph? Will Jerry
Bates and Malcolm McDowell?) Falwell become required
Bigoted nonsense though it viewing, the purchase of Pen-
may be, Rev. Wildmon's cam- thouse a capital offense?
paign has succeeded in scaring PERHAPS NOT-maybe we're
the bejeezus out of most of our already too far down the road to
major corporations-they fawn sin to undergo such a pietistic
over his homespun wisdom the regression. In a recent TV news
way they fawned over the McCar- interview, the occupants of a rest
thyite blacklisters of 30 years home were asked how they felt
ago. Any threatened loss of about Wildmon's anti-smut cam-
revenue speaks far louder than paign. Like feeble, pre-
does the First Amendment, thus programmed manikens, the
attention must be paid. Off with senior citizens replied one by one
their heads. in monotone how sex was dirty
Such predilections seem to run in and should be banned from
cycles. During the 1960s, the TV-until the camera reached a
paragons of the Left held sway in tiny, octogenarian lady.
the public eye; fringe Responding to the question
progressives like Eldridge with a mischievious wink, she
Cleaver, Mark Lane and Jerry confided: "Well, frankly-I like a
Rubin commanded large, serious little sex now and then." With a
audiences despite their addiction few more douses of such shocking
to the most knavish rabble- common sense, ours just might
rousing. Now it's the far Right's become a moral society.
turn, its new prophets exerting a
neo-populist puritanism which Christopher Potter was the
assimilates scads of converts to Daily's spring term
.its cause even as it defies
scholarly rationality. educational director.

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