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4 • The Red and Black • Wednesday, October 17, 1990
OPINIONS
The Red & Black
Established 1893—Incorporated 1980
An independent student newspaper not affiliated with the University of Georgia
Robert Todd/Editor-in-Chief
Jennifer Rampey/Managing Editor
David Johnston/Opinions Editor
■ EDITORIALS
End Apathy
APATHY — want of feeling, indifference.
In the inaugural speech of the President’s Lecture
Series Tuesday, renown political scientist Loch
Johnson spoke of America’s inability to assume world
leadership. Johnson pointed to recent studies in which
American college and high school students couldn’t find
Mexico, the Pacific Ocean and in some cases the United
States on a world map. Johnson went on to discuss our
education system’s disregard for studies of other
languages and cultures.
Each day we move closer and closer to a Global
Society. Japan is just a phone call away, the stock
market in London directly affects Wall Street and we
feel the sting of the Persian Gulf Crisis at the gas
pumps everyday. Yet Americans seem unwilling to
budge from our outdated attitudes about the rest of the
world.
The reason is as obvious as it is inexplicable —
apathy.
“I’ll never go to Japan, why should I care about
Japanese culture?” or “What’s civil war in South
America got to do with me?” are cheap excuses used to
justify apathy. Well excuses are like old shoes:
eveybody has some and they all stink.
What’s even more tragic is the spread of apathy into
our domestic lives. Citizens’ apathy has allowed big
business to pollute our environment, let our public
officials run amuck and prostitute themselves to
special interest groups. Do we hold them accountable?
No. In fact, we don’t even bother to vote.
If America falls further into the abyss, then it is no
one's fault but us apathetic, as in pathetic, citizens.
Indifference is slowly killing this country, while we sit
and watch.
Put it can be stopped. Stay informed, stay involved
and just give a damn about what goes on around you. It
is painless and often rewarding to make a difference.
No new tax
Because of the failure of the state and federal
governments to balance their revenue with their
spending, there’s been a lot of discussion of taxes in this
space lately.
We have on several occasions criticized the
regressive tax policies, such as last year’s rise in the
state sales tax, that are favored by wimpy politicians.
But what about taxes on the American consumer
which serve no other purpose than to increase profits
for multibillion dollar private corporations?
Record industry lobbyists are pushing for a royalty
bill which would tax consumers 60 cents to a dollar on
every blank tape purchased. The purpose of the
proposal is to curtail audio piracy.
But the Home Recording Rights Coalition says that
only one-fourth of all home taping is for the duplication
of pre-recorded music. “Of that one-fourth,” says HRRC
legislative assistant Suzanne Jackson, “about half
consists of people recording their own records and CDs
for use in a Walkman or whatever.”
The costs of home recording to the record industry
are obviously minimal. For instance, if you own a
Beatles CD, are you likely to spend another twelve
dollars on a cassette of the same recording for your car?
No.
This all boils down to old-fashioned profiteering.
Blank tapes would cost around a dollar more than they
do now, and all of that dollar would go to the multi
billion dollar recording industry.
Government surveys show that 81 percent of the
American public would oppose such a tax.
There are already copyright laws which protect
products from being reproduced for profit. There is no
reason, especially in a time of economic uncertainty, for
the American public to absorb such an unnecesary
expense at the profit of big business.
STAFF
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■ QUOTABLE
“We don't promote sex. The students are going to make these
decisions, we just try to make them educated dnes.
— University Health Educator Nancy MacNalr, on selling con
doms at the health center.
Blow the thing up before it warps you
Blow the thing up. Unplug it, haul it in the
yard, and burn the thing. When the fire goes
out, go ahead and bum it agEiin. Now jump up
and down on the thing until it has been
smashed into a mealy mound of ashes. Hurl
curses at the ground in front of you. Buy a
length of chain, beat your back endlessly, then
take your blood and pour it on the charred re
mains. Repeat. Rinse. Your television.
Television is warping your mind and killing
your houseplants. The foundation of your
neighbourhood church creaks with the disease.
The mind turns to evil thoughts. You begin to
covet your neighbour’s oxen.
It all starts with one simple cliche. One pic
ture is worth a thousand words. Put in the con
text of television, it becomes a monster
threatening the very bedrock of society.
In order to create an image, a television cre
ates thirty images(read; pictures) a second. One
tick of the clock removes thirty thousand
words. Extending the argument, in the course
of “My Two Dads,” 54 million words are lost.
Disgraceful.
My major concern is that language is finite
and we are recklessly wasting our future. What
Bill
Davis
happens if we run out of words before the boys
in Washington decide to obliterate the planet?
Will we be once again reduced to grunts and
body language? Perhaps the remote control is
more than a convenience, but an omnious fore
shadowing of our communicative skills of the
future.
Sure, no one will much care when X,Y,and Z
are blanked. No one uses them except in
Scrabble. But what will happen when we nit T.
Everyone will feel the bite. Even Television.
Worse, televison is attacking language now.
How many times has Chrissie from ‘Three’s
Company” butchered a foreign language? How
many times have the writers of a show pan
dered to their slothful audience with a simple
bon mot like *bor\jour'? You know that as soon
as the word goes out through the airways, mil
lions of people say to themselves “OH, I know
what that means. I must be able to speak
French. I think I’ll say so.” Sesame Street is, of
course, exempt.
It is a telling stroke that when television is
literate, it is never referring to itself. It is al
ways referring to a book, not a pass episode or
one from the Golden Age of television. The
closest it gets to art is when it adapts classics to
fit the modern skein of the show. The best ex
ample was when “Moonlighting” tackled
Shakespeare’s ‘Taming of the Shrew.” Sheer
brilliance. Perhaps even better was Star Trek,
where the writers seemed to recycle another
German philosophy every episode.
Twenty-four hour a day cable networks are
doing language no favors. They will be the first
with their backs to the wall when the revolu
tion comes.
Next; why you should trash your phone, car,
and live the life of a prairie drifter.
Bill Davis is a senior English major
Bush benefits from tutelage of master
The new television season is upon us, and al
ready a brillant performance has graced my
screen.
The protaganist, who understudied with one
of the nation’s most renowned thespians for
nearly a decade, has clearly benefitted from an
intense tutelage.
Combining a flair for irony with the flashes
of oratorical virtuosity, this powerful actor
roared through a soliloquoy seldom equaled in
the American theatre. His demeanor recalled
the young Hank Fonda, awkward yet resolute;
His delivery was as smooth as the Voice of
America.
So convincing was he in his new role that
even I, your humble critic, was swept away on a
monentary suspension of disbelief. I actually
felt for a pale instant a stirring desire to salute
the flag and kiss my mother.
But then came the inevitable. A slap in the
face. A moment of crushing truth as desolate ns
that sudden realization that professional wres
tling isn’t real.
The president was lying. He wasn’t merely
stretching the truth, he was wringing it out like
and old rag.
Convinced that the American people won’t
sustain their support for the “desert shield”
once it becomes apparent that men and women
are risking life ana limb over oil and oil alone,
Bush has dreamt up an idea that dwarfs his
mysterious “thousand points of light".
A New World Order.
This one deserves capitalization.
A New World Order.
Like pennies from heaven the words wafted
to my ears, sounding as truthful as Sheriff
Taylor a-talkin to Opie. But then that little
voice, that annoying voice of reason, popped up
like the devil in Fred Flintstone’s head.
This is TV, you booferhead, it said sarcasti
cally. This is bunk, hooey, malarkey, crapola.
Preston
Coleman
Self-serving doublespeak. Rhetoric. Propa
ganda.
Wasn’t this the same George Bush who in
vaded Panama at Christmastime? The same
George Bush who was dining with the Chinese
just months after Tienanmen Square? The
kinder, gentler president who insists on a cap
ital gains tax cut for the wealthy at a moment
when millions are homeless, murder is epi
demic, education is in crisis, the environment is
in jeopardy and the national debt is eating
away at our fiscal future?
The notion that George Bush can send an in
vasion-sized force into Saudi Arabia, and then
follow up with a P.R. campaign aimed at cre
ating the semblance of global unanimity, when
for years we have stood virtually alone against
the world in vetoing U.N. resolutions con
demning Israeli aggression, is ludicrourf.
This is a president whose own nation is in
quiet turmoil, but whose party has consistently
eroded domestic priorities in favor of foreign
policy; a president unable to mandate order in
nis own country pretending to stand tall for a
New World Order.
But it was indeed an impressive perfor
mance.
The very fact that not once did he snicker, de
spite the knowledge that Mr. Quayle sat over
his right shoulder exhibiting all the aplomb of
Tommy Smothers, leaves me in awe at the pro
gress this timer has made towards filling the
shoes of his consummate predecessor.
One would think that Mr. Bush had come
fresh from a Zen commune, or a Moonie lecture,
or perhaps a basement meeting of liberal se
cular humanists as he mined a gem from the
depths of method acting and convincingly stood
before the Congress and the viewing public —
and in one fell swoop garnered for the war-
thirsty right the brillantly original idea of a
New World Order.
A kinder, gentler nation; a thousand points
of light; operation just ‘cause; and now the
zinger. A New World Order.
At least it would be a cleaner, simpler Order;
Mr. Bush gives the order, and the world follows.
Mr. Bush sends out the divisions, and the allies
cough up the bucks. Mr. Bush names the Hitler.
I’ve watched Hitler. I’ve studied Hitler.
Saddam Hussein, you’re no Adolph Hitler.
The performance given by President Bush in
his televised address to Congress was an early
season hit in its domestic run. But once the Ira
nians and the Chinese and the Palestinians
begin to hear an American president claiming
to represent a New World Order, when in fact
there is a global matrix of interests and debates
concerning the proper response to Iraqi aggres
sion, the veneer of unanimity will begin to wear
thin.
George Bush can count on the Pam Press to
compensate for the loss of his master’s teflon —
but only here at home.
I’m afraid that when the imposing agenda of
Mr. Bush and his hawkish clique becomes ap
parent to the true world order, it is Saddam
Hussein who will have gained allies.
Preston Coleman is a graduate student in jour
nalism.
Life begins when you care
■ FORUM
□ The Red and Black welcomes letters to the editor and prints them in the Forum
column as space permits. All letters are subject to editing for length, style and li
belous matenal. Letters should be typed, doublespaced and must include the name,
address and daytime telephone number of the wnter. Please include student classifi
cation, major, and other appropnate identification. Names can be omitted with a valid
reason upon request. Letters can be sent by U.S. mail or brought In person to The Red
and Black s offices at 123 N. Jackon St,. Athens. Ga
In reference to the recent news
of the closing of the Athens Femi
nist Women’s Health Center, and
to the many letters that have been
subsequently appeared in the
“forum” of this paper, I would like
to make an appeal. But first, if I
may, I would like to address the
underlying controversy.
Life, I propose, begins when
people really care. (If you are one of
those few lucy people who under
stand and experience, either now
and/or in the past, the meaning of
love, then you know what I mean.)
To show that one cares, one would
begin by showing respect for the
sanctity of human life, pro-life in
other words.
Certainly, one does not do that
by intimidations, anti social dem
onstrations, disruption of the
public peace, disruption of the
work of doctors and medical per
sonnel through false appointments
at doctors’ offices etc., and defi
nitely not by bombing out clinics.
Do the people who do this see no
value in the lives of human beings
who have spent years growing up,
weathering the travails of child
hood, of puberty, of adolescence, of
schooling, of dating, and perhaps
even of child abuse and/or of being
raped?
Are we kidding ourselves that
we can achieve ultimate and divine
social justice on earth — or in other
words , to bring down the Kingdom
of God on to earth — while grown
up fetuses lie on our streets every
day, winter and summer, in rags,
drunk, unshaven, uncared for, la
belled homeless and outcasts?
Let us stop intruding into the
lives and bodies of women by
means of intimidations, bombs,
and legislations.
With the damage from the af
termath of Operation Rescue and
such similar life-endangering oper
ations, and now possibly also
facing the imminent danger of an
overturn of the Roe vs. Wade deci
sion, perhaps it is time to organize
a rescue operation to uphold and
protect the human and equal right
of women to choose and bear the
consequences of their choice —even
as men daily do.
Anthony Khoo
teaching assistant