page 4
daily nebraskan
friday, april 3, 1981
Bryne's clean-up move merits encouragement
Politicians in America long have
been known for making symbolic
gestures they hope will benefit
them in the political arena come
election day.
But Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne
recently announced a political
gesture that makes all previous
political gestures diminutive in
comparison.
She announced she and her hus
band. Jay McMuIlcn, will take a
residence in a housing project that
has been the site of a violent crime
wave during the last year.
The Cabrini-(ireen housing pro
ject is on the Near North Side of
the nation's second largest city.
Within its 70 acres live some
15.000 residents; and the recent
crime statistics may make many
wonder about the sanity of the
mayor's move.
Twelve people have been k. .led
in the project this year. Th'rty
seven more have been woundeu by
the violence.
Much of this stems from the
pervasive control of street gangs
who have clamped onto the pro
ject and are a powerful, yet
hidden problem that is hard to
eradicate.
The project also suffers because
many ex-convicts from the Joliet
State Prison make Cabrini-Cireen
their new base of operations upon
release.
This prompts the old Chicago
joke of asking someone what is
the difference between Stateville
Prison in Joliet and Cabrini-Cireen
in Chicago? Answer: Stateville has
uniforms.
So now Mayor Byrne has signal
ed that she will not tolerate crime
and violence to ride any area of
Chicago.
It is symbolic in many ways but
it may also yield results. City ser
vices often follow the mayor and
it is hoped the Cabrini-Cireen resi
dents will begin getting the maint
enance they need.
Firemen and paramedics have
refused to enter the project in the
past out of fear for their lives.
Byrne has told her critics who
charge political opportunism that
they are welcome to the take the
apartment next door.
But Mayor Byrne's move will
not be an unrestrained leap into
life with the common folk. The
huge security detail she will bring
with her from the police force
will clearly distinguish her from
the average resident.
Her good china will stay at her
apartment in the ritzy Gold Coast
area. too.
And she has reneged on her
earlier vow to stay in Cabrini
Cireen until the problems are
cleared up. Now she says she will
only spend some of her nights
there.
So after Mayor Byrne returns
from her vacation in Florida this
week, Chicago will see how true
the mayor is to her word.
Many other large cities with
low-income housing problems will
be waiting to see if her plan
works. Everybody talks about
cleaning up violent areas such as
Cabrini-Cireen, but finally action is
being taken.
Whether it reduces crime or just
serves to get Byrne votes in her re
election efforts in two years re
mains to be seen. But let's not dis
miss the idea immediately because
it may be self-serving.
Perhaps the mood of Chicago
may best be summarized by a
man, when told of the mayor's
plans to move to Cabrini-Green,
said, "Well, there goes the neigh
borhood." Tom Prentiss
fM, YA CAN ALWAYS JflS Witt
Viewers should 'turn off ' television smuttiness
Sometimes I think there are doens of coaches out
there, all trying to recruit us, all trying to get us to root
for their side of a social issue, by offering us a big chance
to join the "pros."
gcodman
On the abortion issue they're either Pro-life or Pro
choice. On the regulation issue, they're either Pro-free
enterprise or Pro-consumer. On t he pornography issue
they're cit her Pro-mortality or Pro-First Amendment.
The latest grasp for our allegiance comes over sex on
television. One group is encouraging us to join a boycott
of advertisers and another group is enlisting us to fight
censorship. It's hard to know the right team without a
program.
Last month, something called the Coalition for Better
Television (CBTV) opened up its recruitment drive in
Washington. It declared a campaign to clean up the tube.
It called its' side Pro-morality.
For three months, the coalition announced, several
hundred of its monitors would be rating prime time shows
on a scoreboard of smuttiness. They would list what
Donald Wildmon, a CBTV leader and head of the National
Federation of Decency, cailed "skin scenes, implied sexual
intercourse, and sexually suggestive comments."
When the scoring was over in June, he said, the coali
tion would list the sponsors of the worst shows and call
on people not to buy their products.
Reagan increases nuclear subsidy
Washington Two years ago last weekend, the fiasco at
Three Mile Island scared the wits out of everyone, includ
ing nuclear industry executives who through atomic
power had hit the rocks.
While there hasn't been a domestic order for a nuclear
power reactor since that accident, industry advocates have
become justifiably optimistic about their futures under
the Reagan administration.
Domestic nuclear energy programs, already heavily sub
sidized by the government, arc slated for a 10 percent
boost in the generally lean Reagan budget.
Federal nuclear programs will top $1 billion at the
expense of alternative energy projects. Ronald Reagan
prefers that "exotic" experiments in synthetic fuels, al
cohol fuels and solar energy be tested in the private sec
tor. But not nuclear. Reagan, for example, is seeking a
whopping $230 million from Congress for the experimen
tal Clinch River Breeder Reactor, which former President
Carter had all but killed for safety reasons.
The president also plans to double the Energy Depart
ment's nuclear arms resaerch and development budget.
And he has vowed to speed up the licensing process
for 90 reactors planned or currently under construction.
To help with the job, he's reinstated pro-nuclear Joseph
Ucndrie as chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Not about to blow a golden opportunity, .he nuclear
industry is doing its best to mobilize public support. Plant
tours and neighborhood coffee hours with atomic engin
eers are part of the industry's new national public rela
tions campaign.
But what most citizens have probably already seen isn't
so gentlemanly. Recent advertisements in Time and Xews
week, for example, picture three petrified teenagers in
Levi's and LaCoste shirts being sworn into the Army after
a supposed Arab oil cutoff.
"Maybe the world won't go to war over oil," reads
the ad's caption, "but who'd be foolish enough to want to
find out .'"
Paid for by a consortium of electrical utility compan
ies, the ad implies that nuclear power can reduce the
United States' dangerous dependence on foreign oil.
Despite their outward optimism, such scare tactics may
indicate the industry's underlying anxiety. And the Rea
gan administration may not be too confident either. Just
last week. Energy Secretary James B. Edwards ordered
12.000 copies of his department's monthly "Energy
Consumer" locked up because the magazine contained an
article on the still-unsolved radioactive waste problem
Lingering concerns about nuclear power have prompt
ed a huge coalition of organizations to sponsor a "March
on Harrisburg."
A month ago, radioactive cesium was reported in
groundwater near the plant at levels four times higher
than was previously recorded, well above acceptable feder
al health standards. And three weeks ago. laboratory
tested rodent droppings found at the site raised suspicions
that radioactivity may have entered the local food chain.
Continued on Page 5
Then last week at the annual meeting of 4,000 tele
vision executives in New York, the other team fielded its
defense. Panelists there talked about the dangerous tactics
and motives of the CBTV and labeled themselves Pro-First
Amendment. They said that the monitors were actually
drawing up a hit list. They accused CBTV' of "censor
ship." Well, I bow to no one in my scorn for the TV shows
that come complete with a snicker track. I am appalled at
the number of programs in which sex is the plot, the sub
plot, and the counterpolot. I keep a private "top ten"
collection of ads that broadcasters use to boost their own
shows, and my iatest favorites include: "Blackmail in a
Sex Clinic." "Lucious Lady Truckers Behind Bars." and
"Hot Bikes and Cold Bikinis!"
So. I think Wildmon was right when he told the CBTV
meeting that broadcasters have ignored protests against
the creeping sexualiation of the airwaves and have
"rather displayed an arrogance and indifference rarely
matched in the history of corporate America." The net
works have had a stunning lack of regard for their own
long-term self-interest.
The Top Three in the Pro-moralitv crowd are Wildmon.
Jerry Falwell of Moral Majority and Phyllis Schlafiy of
Stop ERA. I would probably agree with them about the
content of "Flamingo Road." "Three's Company" or
"Dallas" (J.R. has the moral perspective ol a mushroom.)
but I suspect we would part company pretty quickly after
that.
One of the other things that bothers me about this
campaign is the strategy. The CBTV is to put pressure on
the advertisers to put pressure on the broadcasters. Well.
I'm not convinced that the advertiser should be handed
the star role. Some of the ads themselves are mini X-rated
features.
The ad men are a big part of the problem. They'll kill
for the privilege of sponsoring programs with the biggest
ratings and never mind if the rating has been "jiggled" up
a point or two. The CBTV plan would give the advertisers
MORE power in programming and the results would be
even worse for quality.
Does this mean we're impotent? 1 don't think so.
There's room for an angry non-aligned third team. I
believe in boycotts when they're focused on the right
target. We should boycott the advertiser if we don't like
the ads and boycott the program if we don't like the pro
gram. We should just plain turn them off.
Like it or not, the most effective way to change tele
vision and leave the Constitution intact is the play the
broadcasters on their turf, and the old-time ratings game is
the only one they watch.
(c) 1981. The Boston Globe Newspaper Co I
Washington Post Writers Group