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The Itcd mill Black. Tuesday. May 3. 1977
Editorials
The Red and Black
Library problems
There seems to be some
discrepancy between what offi
cials claim is going on, and what
the exact situation is. This time
the differences in opinion are
occurring in the University
Libraries.
Library employes are being
questioned on their views as to
whether the library is complying
with Affirmative Action guide
lines, and if an earlier survey is
any indication, they will believe
the guildlines are not being met.
Original complaints about al
leged non-compliance apparently
have stemmed from an article in
The Library Journal in which
Executive Assistant Director of
the Libraries Donald Petty was
quoted. Petty said the rigid job
description requirements some
times mean "we can’t take a
chance on a black or a female
when we would like to.”
We must take exception with
such an attitude. And although
Warren Boes, director of libra
ries seems to feel most of his
library staff had a positive
attitude toward the article in the
Journal, the open letter from
members of his staff which
appears on this page seems to
dispute this.
We wonder why certain
members of the library adminis
tration would hold Petty’s view.
We had hoped that the days of
hiring on the basis of race or sex
had passed, but apparently we
have been clinging onto straws in
the wind. As long as people
continue to have discriminatory
attitudes, we will never get past
enforced regulations and govern
ment reports and quotas.
If the library would take an
official stand of hiring the best
qualified person for each job, it
wouldn’t have to worry about
compliance with Affirmative
Action guidelines. But apparent
ly, it hasn’t become quite that
advanced in its thinking.
Impressive weekend
Saturday was quite a day for
the University. Notables from
state and national government
were giving speeches and
attending banquets. Secretary of
State Cyrus Vance delivered his
first public speech since being
named to his cabinet post, both
United States Senators from
Georgia—Herman Talmadge and
Sam Nunn—were on hand to
participate in various dedica
tions and ceremonies.
The Governor and Lieutenant
Governor of our state were here,
as well as the adminstrator of
the Federal Small Business
Administration (SBA) and the
chancellor of the University
System of Georgia. All in ali, it
was a memorable weekend for
the University, and we congrat
ulate all those who had a hand in
assembling the guest list.
It is refreshing to see
important persons visit the
University.
We don't have
positive attitude'
STEVE BILLS
Visions of the apocalypse
TO THE EDITOR:
This statement was circulated at the
Main Library only and includes approxi
mately two-thirds of the staff None of
the branch libraries, or the Law Library
were included
We. the undersigned, who are em
ployed at the University Main Library,
would like to take exception to Warren
Boes. director of libraries, statement
that. "He felt that most of the library
staff had a positive attitude toward the
article"—referring to the article by Rea
Christoffersson about the difficulties in
volved in Affirmative Action hiring The
undersigned do not have a positive
attitude toward that article, and we
affirm our continued support for Affir
mative Action compliance
TERRY C AMP
MARY LOU FALLS
CATHY C. W ALLER
YOKO AKIBA
JUDY MALLOW
DONNA GARRISON
BETTY MILLER
KATHY PARKER
DORIS RUSGROVE
MANDY REMOY
MARY PETIPRIN
LINDA Y. ELKINS
CHARLOTTE SPARROWHAWK
SHERRY SCHWEDER
DENIS KENNEDY
PATRICIA SCOTT
MERRILY SANFORD
ANGELA COTE
JANICE REID
PAT MATTHEWS
ED W ILDE
SUSAN MORRIS
MARCIA SUMMERFORD
SUSAN F. JONES
BETH PEIPER
ANN BILLUPS
NANCY WALL
ASSUATA PISANI
MOLLY B. HOW ARD
KATHERINE BROOKSHIRE
IIELAINE SA1RS
CLAIRE COLOMBO
JEANNE LANSMAN
RUBY ANN MORRIS
LUCILLA D. JONES
MARYANICK DUBOST
SHIRLEY DAVENPORT
MARGARET BRIDGES
ELIZABETH MCCARTNEY
CAROLYN ENSLEY
RUNA RICHARDSON
TIM DAUGHTRY
ft
MERDELI.E STEPP
SUSAN B LANDRUM
JUDITH ANNE HOLLEY
ANNE SEWELL
BONNIE W . SMITH
JOHN E. VIA
JAN B HARRISON
JOANN D. IIATTAW AY
JOSEPH COTE
KATHA D. MASSEY
BARBARA BILLUPS
CHRISTINE M JOHNSON
ORLEAN CASTRONIS
SlIERYI H VOGT
SUSAN L. STONE
KATIIY PUMPIIREY
GRACE MCGREGOR
STEVEN E. CLARK
DEBORAH C. MCCARTS
BRADDOCK MIDGE
BARBARA BROCK
LOWELL T. BERENGUEH
HENNA BRODSHY THOMPSON
GAIL ROWLEY
JUDIETTE V AYERS
CATHERINE GARTSEFF
MARY HERNDON
KATHY BARRINGTON
VICKI MILLIANS
LINDA HELTON
FLORA PRINCE
REA ANNE MARTIN
ROBIN M JOHNSON
ROBERT R ( ROUT
FLORItlE R JACKSON
TIMOTHY A. ROBINSON
PETER D KWON
ANDRF.A PATTERSON
MELE BEHENTSEN
BARBARA RYSTROM
MARIE ELLIS
ANN SHEA
IRENE SE (GR AVES
MARY GAISSERT
EI.OISE EOU IIE
LORRAINE MCLENDON
GEORGIA DAMRON
ANGEL W ALL
MARY MUDRE
SUSAN W ILLIAMSON
MILDRED C RANE
GENEVA RICH
FAY DEAN
CHRISTINE BURROUGHS
KATHLEEN T. TAVEL
BETTY A. BOLTON
MARY G. FRANKLIN
LINDA SCHOLN
JIM W. BR ADEN. JI1
Editor's note: The above names were
accompanied by a checklist of It persons
wishing to remain anonymous
An interesting essay appeared in Time
magazine a couple of weeks ago Coming
in the wake of President Jimmy Carter's
stringent energy program, the newsma
gazine asked science fiction writer Isaac
Asimov to project an
energy-poor world 20
years hence
Asimov's essay
portrayed a grim
world of sacrifice
and scarcity. The
"affluent society" of
today had almost
entirely disappear
ed The suburbs were dying, the great
cities were crumbling, and mankind was
involved in a great transition back to
pre-industrial lifestyles
The essay, according to an editor's
note, was not to be considered inevitable,
but a "picture of the worst." should the
worst come to pass Asimov closed the
article by asking "And what can we do to
prevent all this now (in 1977)?
"Now'’ Almost nothing
Steve Hills is copv editor of The Red and
Black
"If we had started 20 years ago, that
might have been another matter If we
had only started 30 years ago, it would
have been easy.”
Carter's omnibus energy program may
be considered a start, but somehow it
seems to be a start toward exactly the
world Asimov described Amid an array
of taxes and penalties for wasteful
energy consumption and incentives for
cooperating with government guidelines,
the President has called for "sacrifice"
through this crisis. He doesn't tell us
when we will be able to stop sacrificing.
TO THE EDITOR:
Power, power, power, humbug' The
Red and Black's April 29 editorial,
"Childish actions" is another example of
circular logic It says that the Student
Senate has no power and then adds that it
cannot understand why the Student
Senate is giving up its power
Which is it? Are they giving up power,
or are they merely recognizing the fact
that they do not have such a power?
Student Government has no authority
right now; it had none before last
Wednesday's meeting The Dean merely
said that he would be receptive to
receiving their recommendations What
power’
Why The Red and Black continues to
harp on last year's allocations process
may elude some students The biggest
public controversy was over some sala
ries for The Red and Black Evidently
they feel that not giving them what they
wanted was a "Childish action." They
were satisfied with the senate allocations
process the year before that; they got
what they wauled So let's not speak of
Childish actions "
The actions of the senate are consis
tent Their budgetary decisions over the
years since 1969 have been almost
without blemish, probably a much better
record tuun lhat of the U S Congress, a
body which nonetheless continues to deal
It looks like the world is about to run
up against the limits to growth that
Donella and Dennis Meadows projected
in a 1972 Club of Rome report These
scientists and their co-workers at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
constructed a complex computer model
to determine how long resources and
energy could hold out in the face of
overpopulation and pollution
The picture they painted was grim
Even under the most optimistic assump
tions. the year 2150 was the limit to
technological growth Under other as
sumptions, the crash was predicted to
come sooner And in the base program, it
was projected to occur in our lifetime.
The specter of the apocalypse stretches
its shadow ever closer Our scientists
cringe in fear over the dangers of nuclear
disaster and genetic engineering. Our
politicians eagerly step in to ban (or limit
the uses of) saccharin, because it causes
cancer in rats, to control the production
and distribution of energy resources, to
regulate the use of radio waves. All in the
name of the people.
The people, as it turns out, are scared
The visions of doom that our intellectual
leaders throw at us are reflected in our
daily lives. If we continue on the way we
are going, we may end up in Asimov's
vision or the Meadow's model.
This matter came up, rather indirectly,
last week in a management course I'm
taking. The professor was contrasting the
"laissez-faire" society of the 1880s to the
"welfare" society of today and projecting
the unknown world of the future.
The laissez-faire society distributed
goods according to "the invisible hand"of
Adam Smith. The welfare society distri
butes goods according to "man-made
social policy."
with budgets though it has been termed
"somewhat" political
When it complains about senate alloca
tions. The Red and Black cannot seem to
see past its salary disputes of last spring
Maybe the writers are just “transient
students" and cannot see the "broader
context" of allocations, as some adminis
trators might say if they disagreed with
The Red and Black
Yet. the record of the Student Senate's
competence is beyond reasonable criti
cism when seen in its complexity and the
broad historical context Even the re
marks of certain administrators that it is
competent to perform certain budgetary
actions would appear to support this
contention
Unlike the editorial suggests, the
senate does not need to "prove" Its
abilities to anyone Nine years of alloca
tions have demonstrated that it can do
the work, if it needed to be "proven" to
anyone, or if anyone were still open to
considering the evidence.
The final remark in the editorial is
intolerable for a student publication:
“Let's see if the senate can do a good job
at what little bit the administration lets it
do " If The Red and Black wants to play
"fetch the bone" with administrators,
that is its decision But if it acts like
Fido. it deserves to be treated like Fido,
and it will be!
ROBERT R C ROUT
The laissez faire society’s moral ideal
was "freedom—individualism " The wel
fare society's moral ideal is "protection
for everybody." The laissez-faire society
emphasized "private property." The
welfare society opts for "the social
theory of property." The laissez faire
society believed in "free enterprise." The
welfare society believes in "regulated
enterprise."
Our characterizations of modern socie
ty were arrived at through consensus.
When that failed, we voted on the
appropriate terms
And when we voted, I most frequently
was in the minority. My main disagree
ment was with the comparable term to
"a democracy of the elite ” I thought the
appropriate phrase would be "the aristo
cracy- of pull," and I said so But the
professor considered that too harsh a
term, and the class decided to call our
political system "a democracy of every
one,"
As we went along, describing our
society and comparing it to the laissez
faire society of days past, I started
laughing back in my corner. The profes
sor turned and asked what I thought so
funny, I told him it would take too long to
explain, but I asked if he had ever read
Atlas Shrugged. He said yes. but what
did that have to do with this’ He further
said that if he were to place Ayn Rand on
a time continuum running from the
laissez-faire society to the welfare socie
ty, he would place her about 188(1. that
seemed to be the age she belonged in. but
not to get him wrong, he didn't think
Rand was bad or anything, just old-fa
shioned, and if I were honest, I would
place her in the same era, wouldn't I?
Come on now
I thought about it for a minute and
suggested that it should probably be
'Conditions need
actions now'
TO THE EDITOR:
I was appalled to see no more than a
handfull of employes at the meeting of
the Association of Classified Employes at
Plant Sciences April 26 These meetings
are presented by classified employes for
classified employes in hopes of bringing
earlier than that.
He said he wanted to see me after %
class.
During break he asked me to clarify
my position and explain why I had been
laughing in class. I said, “It's very #
simple. The society we’ve been talking
about in class is the same one Hand
talked about in Atlas Shrugged. I think
she's right, and I find it satisfying that
you agree too. although you use different
terms to describe things. And I think
we re up against the limits to growth
you've read Meadows and Meadows,
haven't you? But I think the problem is *
not depletion of our natural resources,
but destruction of our intellectual resour
ces.”
He thanked me for explaining
After the break, we projected the world
of the future In place of “man-made
social policy.” we found “facism.” In
place of “protection for everybody,” we *
found “protection of the majority." In
place of “the social theory of property,”
we found "controlled property.” In place
of “regulated enterprise,’’ we found *
“controlled enterprise."
We decided to call this projection "the
Orwellian society—1984 "
The political organization of this socie- *
ty. incidentally, was projected to be
“oligarchy." It seemed to me that “an
aristocracy of pull" would be more likely
to turn into an oligarchy than “a *
democracy of everybody.” I felt vindica
ted
But not everybody is so optimistic as
my management prof. For instance, in •
Sunday’s New York Times, novelist
Chayym Zeldis bemoans the state of
modern society as a "mechanical Mo
loch" that “inundates man with worth- •
less paraphenalia. producing 10 of what
nobody really needs one of, and withhol
ding what people cannot do without.” He
fails to say what that is. •
“Of course, civilization, progress,
etc . can be defended." Zeldis continued
“But I, for nne. cannot hold out any great
hope for a woriu that, from the turn of #
the century, has produced two cataclys
mic global wars, the gas chambers and
crematoria of the Nazi holocaust, the
atom bombs. Korea. Vietnam and other a
assorted armed conflicts...”
I wonder if Zeldis is equally outraged
over the discovery of cures for many of
mankind’s killing diseases, over the f
establishment of a government that, for a
time, attempted to protect all citizen’?
rights equally, or over the development
of a standard of living that allbwed all
members of a society to live better than
the kings of ages past?
But unfortunately, Zeldis, for all his
worn cynical existentialist cliches, has a
point. Whatever we call this world, it is
inappropriate to call it a civilization.
Every day man’s rights are under
greater attack. A dozen African nations
are battling to decide who will control
men’s lives, Czechoslovaks who decry
their regime's inhumanities disappear
into the dungeons, and Americans are
under government order to conserve *
energy—or else.
We collectively have surrounded our
selves with grim scenarios, images of
doom and visions of the apocalypse. You *
individually are now faced with a basic
choice -to step forward and face the
problems of the day. shielded by indivi
dual rights and armed with the individual •
mind, or you can throw down both your
shield and your arms, crawl off into a
hold and wait for the apocalypse to find
you
If you value your life, you need to stand
up now and declare your right to control
your own mind. As long as you let “the
public’’ or the government do your •
thinking for you. as long as you struggle
to conform to other people’s conceptions
of what you should be. you are doomed
along with them to the nightmare worlds .
of Asimov. Meadows, my management
professor and Zeldis
But when you take a stand for
independent thought, you dedicate your- .
self to the goal of earning your own
happiness and at the same time provide
yourself with the basic tool of finding that
happiness.
The choice is yours, brother
logic'
them together as a unit and keeping them
informed about the happenings at the
University.
If you are not concerned about your .
civil rights as workers, how about your
constitutional rights as a person’
Now is the time to act in your own
behalf Stand up and be counted as a ,
person not as a position Your future
working conditions depend on what you
do now.
BRENDA S. WILLIAMS
iener$E3leiier$
'Editorial shows circular