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.