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The Red and BUr k
Tnesday. May 17, IIC
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THE RED AND BLACK
Established IS93 — Incorporated 1980
rharlts H. Russell. General Manager
Chuck Reece. Editor-in-chief
Alex Johnson. Managing Editor
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Grim tales: Falwell and Alabama
An independent student newspaper not off.Sated th the University of Georgia'
Free-market football
The National Collegiate Athletic Association had hidden for far
too long under the guise of amateurism The collegiate athletes
under the NCAA's auspices may 'or may not) be genuine
amateurs, but the organization is no amateur Any group that
turns over *281 million in television contracts every year is in
business — professionally And in the NCAA s case, it’s a monop-
poly holder
TTie 10th U S Circuit Court of Appeals rightly recognized that
fact by upholding a lower-court ruling that would allow colleges to
negotiate TV contracts for their own football games
The suit against the NCAA, filed by the universities of Georgia
and Oklahoma in behalf of the College Football Associaton. may.
when settled finally, bring a ton of television money to the Univer
sity, or at least to the Southeastern Conference, which requires all
outside funds to be split among SEC members
That, of course, is good news for the University However, the
court ruling, if it stands, may bring the folding of some sports pro
grams at small colleges, which depend on the NCAA for financial
support
What this boils down to is a choice between some small college
sports programs and letting the market operate freely To us,
picking the free market is a choice easily made
These days, too much television money flows into the NCAA —
the fruits of each college's carefully built football program — for
the organization to say its TV contracts protect the sanctity of
amateur sports To those who excel should go the spoils, even in
college football
There s a taboo m newspapenng that you don t use
crude or obscene language especially at the four
letter variety That puts me to a bind, because it
restricts my vocabulary when the subject of the Rev
Jerry Falwell comes up
Perhaps the best way around the restriction is for
me to say Falwreil reminds me greatly of my home
state, the sovereign territory to our west called
Alabama
They re both noxious
Such an opprobrious comparison is neither ill
chosen nor coincidental Were Alabama medieval
.Spam. Falwell would be its Inquisitor
At issue here is not only the enure question of blind
religious faith but also of one of its offspring, that
curiously American phenomenon of forced volun
tarism that allows a public-school teacher in
Alabama to set aside one or two or minutes of public
ly funded time to lead impressionable children in
prayer No matter that that s unconstitutional to
every judge in the land except Brevard Hand, who
says Supreme Court rulings and the Constitution
don t apply to states, in Alabama, where the gover
nor H a man who once nearly declared war on the
American government because he didn t want black
students in the state s colleges such voluntary
prayer is the law of the land Alabama even has a
state-approved prayer — a non-denominational
litany spoken to. I assume, a God with an enormous
identity crisis - written by a state legislator whose
father was once the governor himself
Fortunately. U S Supreme Court Associate Justice
Lewis Powell, the same man who last week warmed
the cockles of Falwell s little heart, froze them again
by sinking the Alabama school-prayer laws down So
did the 11th Circuit U S Court of Appeals
There are a lot of strange personalities in this
story, and what they have to say basically tells the
• Ishmael Jaffree a Mobile resident who says his
three elementary -school children were emotionally
harmed because of peer pressure they suffered
when they refused to take part in voluntary
prayers
* Falwell. who said from his Lynchburg. Va .
church that peer pressure never harmed anyone and
might even do some good in this case
a L' S District Judge Hand, who said, according to
the Associated Press the Constitution was irk ended
only to restrain the federal government, not the
states and
a Mobile County School Board President Dan Alex
ander who said it would be a crime'' if the hoard
didn t appeal to the Supreme Court
All of these people are very strange and very
warped In order
a Jaffree says peer pressure over this children s
religious beliefs harmed them To correct that he
decides to sue and splatter those beliefs - or non
beliefs, in this case — all over front pages across the
country,
a Falwell. the same man who preaches the praise
of Christianity s God who supposedly endowed man
with the great gifts of reason and analytical thought
and then turned around and promised eternal damna
bon for all who didn t disavow those gifts and believe
in him on blind faith alone Falwell. the same man
who preaches peaceful taeaching and calls for com
plete nuclear -destruction ability;
a Hand and Alexander, who said, in essence, the
Supreme Court was wrong and that the Constitution
didn t prohibit state government from anything Ex
tending their arguments states cannot only preach
Christianity from the blackboard and textbook but
can also imprison journalists who distress them
quarter troops in all houses in peacetime, search and
seize anvthing without warrants — in other words
they can'ignore all the strictures of the Bill of Rights
from No 1 to No 10. because they don't apply to the
states
Falwell. that master of Constitutional law, doesn t
help matters by proclaiming that the First Amend
merit which says governments are prohibited from
passing laws designed to promote the establishment
of religions, actually menas only that laws can't
choose between denominations of Christianity By
Falwell s standard, the First Amendment applies on
ly to Baptism. Catholicism Methodism, etc That s a
loose interpretation, to say the least, and I leave it to
you to decide how it squares with the incredibly
literal interpretation needed to buy Hand's ruling
You can t have your cake and eat it. too. especially
when it's also my cake
Undoubtedly, the Supreme Court will look at
Hand s ruling, which chastises the Court for 40
years of erroneous assumptions." and will throw it
right back in his and Falwell s faces
At least I can tell Falwell to eat that in public
Alex Johnson is managing editor o/ The Red and
Black
‘Bishops are exercising their rights as citizens ’
TO THE EDITOR:
When I spoke with Tommy Tomlinson
on the phone last Monday. I was given
the impression that I was being in
terviewed for an article concerning the
American Catholic Bishops recent
pastoral letter on the morality of
nuclear warfare I was therefore
surprised to read the headline of the
story . Local Churches Eyeing More
Politics, and even more surprised to
read in the lead sentence that the
pastoral letter gives churches
"license to be involved in politics
The letter does not address the
church-state issue at all It does not
give anybody "license'' for anything
Its purpose is to offer guidance on the
morality of warfare in the nuclear age
The letter is primarily addressed to
American Catholics, but is made public
as a contribution to dialogue and as a
help to government leaders whose
complex and difficult task is to xecure
the common good by just means
I was also distressed to see myself
cited out of context, as if I agreed that
nuclear morality is a peripheral issue
Although few center their lives around
it. many are aware and concerned It is
the church state issue that is peripheral
here the bishops are exercising no
more than their duty as pastors and
teachers, no more than their rights as
American citizens
I applaud The Red and Black for
calling attention to the pastoral letter a
significant document on a topic with
which we should all be concerned I
would hope to see more focused and
complete, factual reporting on it in the
future Analysis of related questions is
good, but is better handled on the
editorial page
CATHERINE A ROGERS
Campus Minister
TAGS will be just the
rubber stamp approving
the university administration ’
departments
Editorial: 543-1809 Advertising: 543-1791
TO THE EDITOR
Studmls fnr Student Representation
has delighted of late in spreading the
gospel of the glorious days to come
under the enlightened reign of Tthe
Association of Georgia Students
With the approval of but 7 SI percent
of the University's 22 OHKplus students
they would presume to erect a student
“government" to act in the name of the
rest of us — we re a mere 20.000 strong.
It 's true
Students Against Misrepresentation
believes that the TAGS charter is
basically flawed it will create a
burgeoning and unresponsive itudent
bureaucracy that will further impede
the actions of special interest groups,
especially those at odds with the
University administration
TAGS will exist primarily for its own
sake, because it will at best only rub
ber stamp decisions made at higher
levels and will act in an accordingly
self serving manner
Finally , the money to operate TAGS
however small and useless a cliche it
may be — will have to come from
somewhere Isn't it comforting to know
that a group empowered by fewer than
one tenth of the students of the
University and operating underly a
badly written charter may soon be
freely priating funds from your
pocket book' 1
The old Student Government
Association demonstrated that
powerless student "governments" are
but an opiate for collegiate politicos,
and in an unusually enlightened move a
few years ago we freed ourselves from
the burden of supporting their ex
pensive habit
SAM will be holding an open lorum at
Memorial Hall Plaza Thursdau at noon
to voice again our many objections to
TAGS and urge its charter's defeat we
challenge SSR to share the platform
with us and attempt to refute our at
tacks on their ill-conceived brainchild
ROBBIE OWEN
Students Against Misrepresentation
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Production: 543-1791
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But the sun came up yesterday, too
Jubilant excitement doesn t come often tor
nihilists, so please be kind enough to let me grasp for
a fleeting bit that has been teasing me ot late
Urn young enough to be able to look ahead to a time
when I will quit regretting my antisuinde pledge
And I'm old enough that reminiscing is finally
beginning to be fun It really is a delirious dichotomy
It accounts (or my current glee 1 think You see this
contentment stuff is very confusing to me
I woke up Saturday morning to a house that needed
a good day and a half of airing out. some expensive
stereo speakers that need a good week in the shop and
a throb in my head that needed something of which I
didn t have I kind of liked it
If you dislike cliches as much as I. you may un
derstand my pleasure There is a melancholy piece of
pith that goes Ignorance is bliss." and that has
wreaked havoc upon my post-pubescent sanity The
other morning presented to me an idea that may
allow me to avoid use of that saying Ignorance is
actually more like sohnety Finding out is
drunkenness And what follows is an infrequently
interrupted hangover
After reliving memories of Rock Hunter putting his
eternal brass knuckles championship on the line
against leaping Lanny Paffo son at sit up champion
Angelo "The Professor Paffo' and Stan "The Man
Staziak modeling a leisure suit for Men s Factory
Outlet and the time on Fernwood 2 Night when the
Dunbar sisters presented their bicentennial ex
travaganze with their mother playing the tubal. 1
nostalgically thought about bow nice it would have
been to have enjoyed those years with the worldly
awareness we collegians are conv inced we have
Of course. I realize the impossibility of such hopes
Jimmy Snucka and Paul Orndorf just don't cut it for
those of us who remember the days of Tarzan Tyler
and Dandy Jack And whatever happened to the
Missouri Mauler' No revelation of my University
studies matched the shock of when he turned out to be
the brother of The Assassin No 2
Those were the days before it mattered that the
Anderson Brothers weren't really brothers And
those were the dsys when listening to Milo Hamilton
and enjoying a root-beer float were all one needed to
fulfill bis life
But then came all those books, and geniuses to be
appreciated through them Then came thousands of
years of histones of people about whom you could
know almost everything and conjecture what you
couldn't.
And then came love, that intoxicating nectar which
could make insignificant even the day Joe Pefxtone
donned an Atlanta Brav es uniform
But with love came heartbreak It hurt more deeply
than that first D minus, the one I had to bnng home
and have my mother sign This pain, however, was
rich because 1 felt a hurt no one before me ever had
Such emotional exclusivity was something to be
treasured
When 1 started crying to friends, however, instead
of giving comfort, they told how they had gone
through the exact same thing Friends then began
coming to me with plagiarized anguish I thought I
had copyrighted
The pilfering of things personal until every thing is
community property is what leads to psvehosis So
when W illie Nelson makes the Top 40 or when so
many people start watching SCTV that the scripts
start catering to the dull of wit, the novelty turns to
resentment Somehow it doesn t matter that I used to
try to get everybody else to partake in my pleasure
For years 1 used to dream that the Braves would
actually win more games than thev would low 1 met
ridicule when I tried to proselytize my friends into
fans Now Atlanta is the most promising team in
baseball, and replicated hats complement everything
from polos to Dead Kennedys T shirts The en
trance exit to the library now displays Braves
memorabilia where it once encased trophies of exotic
cultures and arts
I admit 1 still love passing up homework to worship
Steve Bedrosian s fast hall and Dale Murphy s
maturation into baseball s best player But for all its
nauseating side effects. I'm not so sure I wouldn t
prefer Maximino Leon and Ivan Murrell Sure the
latter group was probably not fully appreciated, and
the former are temporarily inebriating But
sometimes I have to wonder Is it worth the morning
after’
Jams Joplin assaults my ears, screaming. 1 would
trade all of my tomorrows for one single vesterday. "
She did just that Sometimes I think I would make the
same trade I'm just scared I II get npped off
Frank Reus u chief copy editor of The Red and
Black