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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1975)
editorial Frosh: on your toes So, you're a freshman on the first week of classes? Some friendly advice on how to avoid the pitfalls of Oregon academia: Regardless of whether the Time Schedule of Classes lists your instructors as Jones, Smith, Slobotnik, and Staff, don't address your questions about your world lit syllabus to "Ms. Staff." Remember that your "terminal digits" are of concern to the Registrar's Office, not the Student Health Center. Do not be dismayed that our language laboratories don't measure up to the one you used in Podunk High School; we have lovely tennis courts. Try not to become cynical about personal relationships if your neighbors in the apartment complex speak to you only when they want to borrow your typewriter. If you live in a noisy dorm, remember that those who survive do their studying (and sleeping) in all-night cafes and the library. If you depend upon a bicycle for transportation, never leave it unlocked. And never leave it, period, for very long. Actually, the place to have left it was back in Podunk. And (as you may have learned last week), don t move into town the week of registration and expect to find housing. Lastly, to get the most out of your tuition dollars, no matter how intriguing our headlines, or tempting our graphics, don t read the Emerald during class. And that goes double for the guy reading over your shoulder. 'Tjim SM. "SMwxw Letters Texts not available I would like to call attention to the 'Catch 22' policy regarding textbook purchases at the U of 0 Bookstore. As most students must know, the bookstore will make no refund unless a 'drop slip' accompanies the returned text. Of course, one must first be able to register for a course before one can drop same. The 'Closed Board' provides ample evidence of the folly of anyone assuming that they will get desired courses. Clearly the reasonable practice would be to wait until after registration to purchase texts; reasonable, that is, except for the shortage of copies of many required books. By the time registration is over, many course texts are sold out. The student is left to seek mystical sources of knowledge or to share a library copy with ten others in a similar plight. The crux of the matter is the insufficient requisitioning of texts, perhaps justified as necessary in an academic system that annually discards required titles like so many throw away beer bottles. I have understood, however, that the exhorbitant price of books was justified, in part, by this rapid obsolescence; so why aren't they at least available when needed? At none of the five other major universities which I've attended has this problem existed. The very least which Oregon students can expect is an adequate explanation of this situation. I suggest the U of 0 Bookstore provide a response through this newspaper. Paul Conte Computer Science Grad. Student Letters policy The Emerald will accept and try to print all letters containing fair comment on ideas and topics of concern or interest to the University community. Because of space limitations, letters must be no more than 250 words-typed, triple-spaced, dated and signed with the person s major or dis cipline Longer letters will be shortened at the editor's discretion Longer opinion col umns will be published whenever possible after being submitted to the editorial page editor The limit on opinion columns is 1,200 words, using the same format as let ters. •opinion President’s Energy Independence Agency to ‘supplement’ free enterprise, aid big oil By NICHOLAS VON HOFFMAN WASHINGTON (KFS) - If President Ford is permitted an infinite amount of time to think up an infinite number of energy programs, it is mathematically possible for him to eventually hit on one that makes sense. His latest losing ticket is the $100 billion Energy Independence Agency. This stunningly bad idea is based on the New Dealish premise that, if you can't solve a problem with money, at least you can hide it by papering it over with greenbacks. But what is Mr. Ford's problem? He wants the United States to stop buying foreign oil and use domestic fuel produced by exotic, currently commercially unprofitable technologies. Unhappily for him, however, private investors won't put up the money to develop technologies that can be undersold by conventionally pumped oil. For months Mr. Ford has been trying every which way to cheat the law of the marketplace by driving up the price of oil. He has taxed oil and he has decontrolled it, but, even with the cooperation of foreign oil producers who want the price to go up also, slackening demand and abundance of supply have conspired to keep the exotics noncompetitive. So, since he can't rig the market in the exotics' favor, he wants to subsidize them. The government should provide the research and development money to make the new technologies competitive, the taxpayers should assume the risks, and the oil companies and the public utilities will take the patents on the new processes and the profits. This is what the President means when he says his newest program "will not replace the private enterprise system — it will supplement it." Page 4 This supplement is to take some objectionable forms. For instance, money will be "lent" to the utility companies to build clusters of power plants in "energy parks." In other words, small-scale technology is junked. No research money to perfect solar power devices to free the individual homeowner from the electric company. There is no reason to think such a direction would cost more, but Mr. Ford instinctively chooses to spend public money to centralize the presently overcentralized, privately run, government-protected power industry. It has been reported that the President was sold this program by Mr. Rockefeller. It does bear the telltale signs of Rockefeller-style socialism. Note that instead of a straight-out, honest sub sidy, Mr. Ford follows the pattern the Vice President used so often in New York. The government is to issue bonds, thereby letting the banks in for a profit while disguising the debt incurred by the taxpayers. This is called "off-budget borrowing" and it is the most insidious form of deficit spending. It does have its advantages. If you sneak all your business subsidies through by off-budget borrowing and keep all your welfare expenditures on-budget, you can make it look like it's the poor people who are wrecking public finances. In his years as governor Mr. Rockefeller used this form of sharp practice time and time again. It got him around the state con stitution's debt limitations, it got him re-elected four times and it got New York sent to the poorhouse. It's also significant that Mr. Ford should make this proposal at a meeting of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department. It was charac teristic of Mr. Rockefeller to bring these labor unions in as junior partners on these deals. The banks, the contractors, the steel, cement and supply industries were the seniors, but certain preferred unions were brought in to widen the political base. Thus in accordance with the old Rockefeller formula, Mr. Ford roused the trade unionists by saying, "Let's spend at home for American jobs some of the billions we've been spending abroad for foreign oil and foreign payrolls... In response to those nations which would control our energy supply and prices and hence our future, I say to industry, to construction workers and to all Americans: ‘Let's go into business for ourselves. Let's produce American energy in America with American workers.' " This may seem like strange jingo language for a President who calls people isolationists who don't agree with him. "Uncle Sam isn't about to say 'uncle,' " quoth Mr. Ford nicely scrambling foreign policy objectives with energy crisis necessities. Americanism-energy independence is primarily a political idea. We don't object to being iron ore dependent or banana dependent because that doesn't interfere with our Middle Eastern games. Naturally we don't like to pay higher prices for oil, but that does not bother the government nearly as much as the vulnerability to pressure that reliance on foreign oil creates. But, since the public would never pay hundreds of billions of dollars just to avoid buying oil from Arabs, the Administration must confuse the debate by suggesting its "dramatic, crash programs" are the best way to solve the unrelated energy crisis. Still Mr. Ford has accomplished one rare thing. Almost every proposal has something to be said for it. This is one of the very few which has none. Copyright, 1975, The Washington Post-King Features Syndicate Wednesday, October 1, 1075
