opinion
February 2,
i
Slouch
By Jim Earle
'‘His is a sad case. They unplugged him and the silence
almost killed him. ”
Campus ‘me’ decade
far from finished
by Maxwell Glen
and Cody Shearer
One disheartening effect of America’s
economic difficulties was reaffirmed last
week to nobody’s glee.
In its 17th annual report on attitudes
among first-year college students, the
American Council on Education de
clared that this year’s f reshmen are more
materialistic and less reformist than any
surveyed before. This fact alone isn’t
very surprising, since freshmen have
been on a well-documented ego trip since
the mid-1970’s.
Yet it raises old questions not only
about the immediate implications of cam
pus me-ism, but also new doubts about
the political future of the United States.
Even if prosperity reappears on Amer
ica’s horizon, recovery may not free the
post-Vietnam crowd from manacles
forged in the uncertainty of today.
Recession-era Americans can judge as
they will the career interests inscribed in
the results of the council’s researchers at
UCLA. More than two-thirds of this
year’s freshmen thought that “being very
well-off financially” was “very impor
tant,” up almost 4 percent from last year
(in 1967, the figure was 43.5 percent);
there was a similar increase in the share
of freshmen who considered financial
gain a “very important” reason for
attending college. But exorbitant college
costs and the scramble to repay loans
have twisted the purpose of higher edu
cation; increasingly, the reason for
attending college is to pay for it.
Conclusions about the class’s views on
certain social issues are more elusive.
While freshmen grow more supportive
of national health care and abortion,
their liberalism may only be self-serving;
support for busing to achieve racial ba
lance in schools has increased, but it still
reflects the preferences of only 46.8 per
cent (merely 35.5 percent of all freshmen
endorsed affirmative action in college
admisions).
There’s nothing fuzzy-, however, about
their regard for “social activism.” Little
more than one in five freshmen see merit
in the goals of environmental cleanup or
community-action programs. Fewer yet
would want to “influence the political
structure.”
This disinclination has been unnerv-
ingly evident in campus activism. Once-
provocative student organizations — of
blacks, women, environmentalists,
among others — have seemingly become
parochial havens, much like their repli
cas in Washington. Where new issues —
Central America, nuclear weapons, for
example — have emerged, participants
have often been veterans of past cam
paigns who never turned in their pla
cards.
One might have thought that frenzy
over nuclear arms would make activists
of many students today. But the freeze
became de rigeur last year among stu
dents and faculty alike only after town
councils and church groups led the way.
Whether it’s the legality of American
intervention overseas or the drinking
age, university communities have been a
Petri dish for spawning debate and
change. But with the half-life of critical
national issues shortened on American
campuses, we may be doomed to the sta
tus quo.
But as classes enroll and graduate with
little more than a distant interest in social
and political activism, they collectively
strike an uncanny parallel with Orwell’s
class of “1984.” They could become tech
nocrats predisposed to the whims of any
one who serves their special-interest
placebos. Political analyst Kevin Phillips
predicts that “populism” of this sort,
coming from once-traditional electoral
groups, could make our country practic
ally ungovernable.
For its sake, we hope the Class of ’86
has other plans.
The Battalion
USPS 045 360
Member ot
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Hello, hello, and hidee ho
Aca
by Art Buchwald
There is a communications revolution
going on in the world right now. New
technology has made it possible for peo
ple to communicate with each other by
everything from satellites to car tele
phones. The only problem is that
although scientists have made it possible
to think up ways of keeping in touch with
each other, no one seems to know if it’s a
good thing or a bad thing.
1 came to this conclusion when I was
riding with a friend in his car the other
day. He had one of those new telephones
attached under the dashboard.
“What do you need that for?” I asked
him.
“I couldn’t do without it. Look, all I
have to do is hit this button and I can get
my office.” I heard the buzzing and a
voice picked up the phone.
“Thunderbird and Thunderbird,” the
lady said.
“This is Mr. Thunderbird. Do you
have any calls for me?”
“No, Mr. Thunderbird.”
“No calls at all?”
“No, Mr. Thunderbird. The phone
hasn’t rung since you left the office.”
“Well, I’ll be driving in my car for
another 25 minutes. If anyone calls put
them through to my car telephone.”
“Business must be slow,” I said.
“We’re hurting like everybody else,”
he said.
“When did your recession start?”
“Come to think of it, just about the
time I put the phone in the car.”
“That’s tough. Just when it’s possible
for you to communicate by car phone
with a client, there are no clients.”
“You have to be ready for the turnar
ound in the economy,” he told me.
“When it comes I’ll be able to handle all
my business from my car.”
Just then the phone buzzed.
“There you are,” said Thunderbird.
“You see the importance of the phone? 11
I didn’t have it, someone else might have
gotten the business.”
He picked up the receiver. “Thunder
bird speaking.”
“Is that you, darling?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Where are you?”
“Massachusetts Avenue and Western.”
“Would you stop at Wagshal’s and
bring home a pound of roast beef , dill
pickles and a case of beer?”
“I’ve already passed Wagshal’s. Why
can’t you send Tommy?”
“He’s out driving somewhere, but he
doesn’t have a phone in his car.”
Thunderbird muttered something
and turned around.
“I guess there are pluses and minuses
to having a phone,” I said.
“I should have never given my wife my
number.”
The phone buzzed again. It wasThun-
derbird’s secretary. “Mr. Thunderbird,
Father Brooke of Holy Cross just called
and said he needed the
pledged for the new sciencel
“Did you tell him you coulcj
me?”
“Yes. But he said to call yoj
car. I didn’t tell himyouhada|
your car.”
“I did,” Thunderbird said.'
he’d he happy one of his aim
made good.” H
We picked up the roast beefiB rs ' l
i- .‘. i ... .i i i f.BAnm- s
The
sh.ils .mil Nl.tllrd luck out
I In- ,,l rang again.
Mrs. I hunderbird again.“D*
a dear and jhck up Johannaat|
Arms. She seems to havemissedl
pool.
Thunderbird almost threwikl
out the window.
It buzzed once more.
Thunderbird brightened up*:
heard the voice.
"Hey, Eddie, where are yoii|
from?”
“My car. Where are you?"
“I’m in my car. I canhearyou
clear. What’s ujj?”
“Nothing, I just wanted tosat
“Well, I lello, hello and hidet
“Roger and out.”
“Now you see the true value:
telephone,” Thunderbird said
didn’t have one in my from
wouldn’t have been abletotalh
until I got home.”
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Cryonomics — freezing programs
by Dick West
United Press International
Second class postage paid at College Station, TX
77843.
WASHINGTON — Most laymen are
familiar with the branch of cryogenics
that preserves living matter for future
use by freezing it.
What may be the ultimate spinoff
theorizes that you can freeze your body
until someone discovers a cure for what
ails you. Then they thaw you out and —
voila! — you live happily ever after. Or
something like that.
But what of cryonomics, the science of
freezing government programs?
That theory, apparently, is less widely
understood.
The basic idea is to freeze federal
spending until someone discovers a cure
for budget deficits. Then the programs
are thawed out and thereafter expand in
a more healthy manner.
Just what experiments in cryonomics
Congress might approve this year is yet to
be determined. Among budget items
President Reagan has mentioned for pos
sible freezing are military pay and Social
Security benefits.
Although all of us Washington corres
pondents have informed sources we can
tap for information, I seldom quote my
cryonomic sources, mainly because their
leaks usually are iced over by the time I
get them.
Nevertheless, this seemed a good time
to talk with a few experts to get a feel for
what is going on.
It now is technically possible to freeze
an entire budget, one source confided.
But when I tried to pin him down as to
what would happen after the thaw, he
began to waffle a bit.
He could not guarantee, he admitted,
that a frozen budget would retain intact
all of the programs we have come to
know and love.
Once restored to room temperature,
he said, some of the programs might fail
to regain their original level of support,
and would simply languish or expire.
Despite such incertitude, however, all
of the cryonomic experts I consulted
were curious to see what would happen if
selected parts of the budget were frozen.
“From what we know now, domestic
spending appears to be the most likely
area for low temperature preservation,”
an independent consultant told me.
“I would be reluctant on the basis of
tests thus far to try freezing military
spending. The chill could cause an unre
pairable crack in the window of vulnera
bility.”
By contrast, another consultant was
confident the Pentagon budget could be
frozen without serious loss of muscle or
overall deterrent capability.
“Cryonomics worked wonderfully in
the case of the B-l bomber program,” he
pointed out.
“President Carter may have til
he killed the program, but it reall)'l
dead. We just put it on ice foratl
He suggested the best way toprl
the MX missile program would|
freeze the “dense {jack” basingniif
“Then, in a few years, wecanbij
back to life under another namea
MX will be as viable as ever,”hes
My sources cautioned, howeveij
cryonomics won’t work unless a*
budget deficits is found.
Without that breakthough,
ceded, cryonomics would betantan.
to draining off their vital fundsaw
pumping them full of red ink.
Berry s World
(L) 1983 by NEA Inc
"\t's a new game based on THE SOCIAL
SECURITY SYSTEM '