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
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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
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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