Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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EDITORIALS, Obnoxious police Ordinarily, most public arenas, stadiums and coliseums hire a corps of law enforcers whose prime objective is to, well, enforce the law. Fortunately or unfortunately, as the case may be, Carolina Coliseum is no different. Those red-jacketed gentlemen who made national publications as a result of their "restraining" action In the Carolina Marquette game, are members of the South Carolina Law En forcement Department, or SLED. Supposedly, these men keep order both on and off the court. Realistically, they are a bunch of obnoxious hotheads who appear to think they run every aspect of the sidelines during a basketball game. Take for example the Niagara-Carolina game. The two of ficials had made an obviously bad call to end the first half, and the entire crowd was screaming at them. Including our faithful law enforcers. That's like a patrolman cheering while his com panion is pistol whipping a 15-year-old for stealing a bicycle. Then against Marquette, the players had nearly ended their own heated argument when one of the red-jackets charged out and started badgering Warrior Coach Al McGuire and two Marquette players. As a result, a chair was thrown and all hell broke loose again. And Carolina students were charged by a noted sportscaster for being on the court and inciting a riot that really never occurred. Why is it that these men can be allowed to yell at an official, rush out on the court to berate an opposing coach or cheer the home team, while another law enforcer who wears a uniform insists upon telling the pep band to quit being so loud? Since when is the state of South Carolina so free of crime that it can assign its men to handle such hardened criminals as lousy referees and opposing coaches? Apathy at USC A kind of deadly apathy Is smothering this university. It Is present in the administration, the faculty and particularly the. students. It concerns the purpose of this institution--education. Research by noted educators:, particularly Charles Silber man, author of "Crisis in the Classroom," has shown that our present system of education manages to cram students' heads with mountains of facts without teaching them how to use this information. The result is that our colleges and universities produce thousands of graduates who have a diploma and little else. The grading system, for example, has become an end to itself. Students struggle to get a grade to please professors, and learn nothing. Such a system encourages memorization, cheating, and worst of all, contributes to drug abuse. The nights before midterms and finals are unusually well lit by the-lights from rooms where students are staying up all night on amphetamines, and they are literally killing themselves for a grade. Tests and examinations, therefore, are not good in dicators of what a student has learned. The lecture system, usually hated by most students and some faculty members, has become the cornerstone of higher education, and will be most Instrumental to its downfall. True education is a two-way process where a student and professor can exchange ideas. Lectures effectively prevent this. But the picture is not quite as bleak as it sounds. There are innovative programs here, now, that offer a student the chance to escape from the traditional guagm ire. One is Contemporary University, which offers up to 15 credit hours for a semester of independent study. However, the problem is still apathy. Few students will risk actually learning something, and they will have no one to blame but themselves when they graduate with the mentality and creativity of a baboon. What we must have is an awakening. Students and faculty must start screaming their displeasure about how their minds are stifled, and make themselves heard. And we need it now. Today revisit 'Tin time BY JOHN T. GASH Associate Editor Norman Cousins defines com munications as "a carrier of ideas." Last November, Cousins temporarily ceased his role as a primary transmitter of those ideas: he resigned as editor of "Saturday Review." When he resigned, many saw it as the sign of losing an institution, an in stitution embedded in the heart of the culturally attuned. Indeed the resignation was one of the most important developments in the literary field, but it was more significant in another way: it was indicative of the times, for the times of late have been times of change for the magazine profession. ...newspapers and magazines are two of very few things that the common man can afford which provide both an educational and entertaining experience.... The biggest change was Look magazine's times. The real villain, was the then-proposed increase in postal rates for second class permits. The new rates would have sent Look's postal fees from $4 million to $10 million in five years. The publisher called the increase "unconscionably high" and said that the rates violated the prin cipal that mailing costs for magazines and newspapers should be kept low. His point is well taken: newspapers and magazines are two of very few things that the common man can afford which provide both an educational and entertainment experience. Of course, we can always watch television and become involved in the contest of who can be stupider, the writers or the producers. (This is not to say that television doesn't have its good points. The documentaries, news programs and some of the more modernized shows are good examples.) Someone has told me that the average television show is aimed at the seventh grader's in telligence. Generally that does appear to be true but not always. It seems to me that It may be the other way around: in some cases that the television writers actually can't write above the seventh grader mentality. Another victim of the rising postage costs is The New Republic. In the January 22 issue "NR" says, "Rising editorial, production and postage costs oblige The New Republic to raise its subscription rate." The increase will come March 1, wit h the one-yar uscriptionn Dd aes of I s of ch rates going from $12 to $15 and from $6 to $10 for students and armed services personnel. As one can see, the greatest increase comes in the area of student and military personnel use; the in crease is 20 per cent for normal subscribers and 40 per cent for students and the military. Strike another blow for the government's love of our country's education (they are after all the ones who okayed the initial in crease and are the ones who have now said that the postal service is not subject to the phase 2 wage price freeze, thus, allowing the second class mailing rates to be increased 30 percent each -of the next five years. While this is going on, the magazine publishers are restricted by the freeze. The New Republic, for example, was allowed the increase in sub scriptions only "to provide the opportunity to break even," as the Price Commission noted.) A third victim of increasing economic concerns was Esquire, though not as a direct result of the government's policy. This magazine, however, didn't have to resort to something as drastic as Look; it cut its format size about 20 per cent. But every magazine should cut its size if they did what Esquire did with its first issue in the new format. The first smaller - sized issue, which appeared after 453 regular-sized editions, con tained the writings of Vladimir Nabokov, William Styron, Kenneth Tynan and many more. Another magazine that folded last year was I. F. Stone's Bi Weekly, a small but polemical newsletter. Stone's departure was not, however, the result of economics; it was the result of the old man tiring from the strain of deadlines and hard work. Stone is now a contributing editor for "The New York Review f Books. Of course let us not forget the change at Saturday Review. With Cousins gone, it will never be quite the same. Another reason why it .the television writers can 't write above the seventh -grader mentality....' won't be the same is that Norman sort of borrowed his former managing editor, general editor, art editor and advertising manager. And what is he going to do with all those old "SR" hands? Y(OU guessed it! They are going to start a new magazine, "The Son of Saturday Review," as Time called it. Actually the tentative name is Review. Another change of late was the change in format of Time. The editors changed the cover by reducing the red border by three sixteenths of an inch, giving the cover art more visual impact and making the logotype (the word "Time) bolder. Inside the magazine they made the headline type bolder, placed the index permanently on page 2, . ate ange made headlines and captions flush left, made the margins wider by a fourth of an inch and added color to the section heading. They did all this to "keep the looks of Time current with its spirit, which was never antique." Intellectual Digest pulled some sort of reverse in the trend of in the field of "magazine metamor phosis": it went from smaller to larger and increased its publication from bi-monthly to monthly. "ID" - is a small phenomenon in an area where most competitors are experiencing economic loses."ID," is owned by the same people who now own Saturday Review. "Intellectual Digest' is a minor phenomenon in an area where most competitors are experiencing economic loses....' One magazine to look for is Ms. Ms. (pronounced similarly to fizz) will be under the editorship of Gloria Steinem-and, of course, all of us know who she is. For you "male chauvinists" who are still stuck on Miss Feb., Ms. Steinem is Ms. woman's lib. Ms., which has had publication as part of New York magazine, will resume regular publication'this spring. What does all this change in the magazine world mean? First, it means that an economic situation created by the govern ment (wage-price freeze), which restricts the magazines and lets the postal rates climb enormously, is helping destroy some of our most important sources of information for the average man. And it ap pears, if the situation continues, things for most magazines will worsen. After all, how long can 'The New Republic' be given the opportunity just to break even, how long can Newsweek foot the bill for a postage rate that will double what it pays for postage in five years, how long can Time, Inc. withstand an increase which will triple its postage bill from $35 million to $42 million without raising subscription and ad vertising rates, which can be raised only so much because of the Phase 2 restrictions. If the magazines do raise sub scription ra tes, will the man on the streets pay for It? This is something which we really don't know. But one thing is clear: in many homes, where the budgets are already tight to begin with, a magazine is considered a luxury and when the squeeze is put on the financial belts of the home, the so called luxuries are the first to go. Secondly, the changes indicate that the magazines are also trying to keep up with their audiences. Which is sort of ironic in itself, considering the first point: what good is a magazine with a balanced format and strong editorial content when its reader's can't get access to it?