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University of Michigan independent student newspap
INTRO
I would like to be the first one to
welcome you to the wonderful world of free
speech. That's right folks, you are reading
one of the only student owned, student run
and student written newspapers in the State
of Michigan.
This newspaper was started in order to
fill a gap. A gap that has existed since
1988 when the U.S. Supreme Court decided in
the case of Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier that the
protection of the First Amendment on freedom
of the press do not apply to student
publications which are run or sponsored by
the school. That is where CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
comes in. We are a newspaper that is not run
or sponsored in any way by any school. This
newspaper, by being a privately run entity,
is protected by the First Amendment just as
the Free Press or Macomb Daily are.
The purpose of CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE is to
supply an outlet for intellectual expression
and freedom without the threat of censorship
looming over.
Anything submitted that is tasteful and
legal will be printed in CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
even if the editorial staff does not agree
with what the story says. The articles and
art work in the newspaper do not in any way
reflect the views of the whole newspaper
staff. The newspaper was not started to spew
forth an endless stream of political
propaganda for any one side of an issue. We
welcome any side of any argument on any
subject.
If anyone has a story or a piece of art
that they would like printed in the next
edition of CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, you can do one
of two things. Either find the editor or any
of the assistant editors and give it to them
or mail it to:
Nathan Sellers
34132 Jewell Dr.
Sterling Heights, MI 48312
I hope to see everyone taking advantage
of this newspaper. After all, it belongs to
all of us.
Nathan Sellers - Editor
WHY CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE?
Before you begin to read CIVIL
DISOBEDIENCE, I believe that it is of great
importance that I explain to you why we chose
this as the name for our newspaper.
In 1849, Henry David Thoreau wrote an
essay called "Civil Disobedience". In this
essay he explained that he could not and
would not pay taxes to a government that
supported slavery. Henry David Thoreau went
to prison for this act of conscience.
In this essay Thoreau said that, "Unjust
laws exist; shall we be content to obey them,
or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey
them until we have succeeded, or shall we
transgress them at once?".
It is this thought that we at the paper
follow. We are not here to fight all
injustice in the world, that would be futile;
but we will not support that injustice with
our tolerance. By objectively pointing out
the controversial to you, we hope that you
will decide for yourself what you should or
should not see and think.
"I think we should be men first, and
subjects afterwards. It is not desirable to
cultivate a respect for the law, so much as
for the right. The only obligation which I
have a right to assume is to do at any time
what I think right."
It is this that gave us the idea for our
newspaper. The beliefs of Thoreau live on
through all of us. I hope to see everyone
taking part in this experiment in free
speech.
Junius (Nate)
I'M "BEEPING" MAD!
"The pagers act as a device that informs
the drug dealer that a particular party is
interested in a purchase." This is what was
said in The Sterling Sentry, September 19, by
Robert Freehan, Director of Public Relations
of Warren Con, when the school board passed a
policy prohibiting students to carry pagers
in school.
I am enraged that I, a "pocket pager"
carrier, have been accused, by Mr. Freehan,
of being a drug dealer. Many of my friends
are also carriers of pagers, and we do not
wear them to deal drugs. We use them as
communication devices, a way to get in touch
with our friends. What better and sure way
to get a hold of someone by just giving them
a beep.
I do not keep it a secret that I carry a
beeper and it is no secret to my parents
either. But I was totally insulted when Mr.
Director of Public Relations said, "When
students get beeped or paged on their pagers,
they are being signaled that a drug deal is
going to come down."
I demand, as well as many of my peers, an
immediate public apology by Mr. Freehan. And
as far as I am concerned, I am still going to
wear my "pocket pager" wherever I go. I
believe if I am old enough to buy one, I am
old enough to wear it!
REVOLTING WITH STYLE
Okay, okay, I know that political protest
is the trendy thing to do these days, but
come on people! Enough is enough already!
We've killed the 60's, let's bury it.
The original concept of revolution, as
given to us by our trendy forefathers, is to
rise above the oppression inflicted on the
humble masses and demand reformation. No
matter the conflict. No matter what the
consequences may be.
But, as usual, we, the misguided
proletariat, choose to yet again take things
out of context and protest any-and-everything
we deem unfit for the basic human society.
So, for all you people who are bitching about
the National Defense budget as opposed to the
small and dwindling budget given to, let's
say - WELFARE, find out the facts and know
what you're talking about (education is
terribly underrated these days).
Let's face it folks, we need these bombs
and weapons. No matter how 'under control'
things may appear to be between ourselves and
the Middle East, don't think they wouldn't
come in and nuke the beegeebers out of us if
they thought they could get away with it. I
know, I'm exaggerating, and I also know that
you can only nuke the world over ONCE. SO
why do we have enough to accomplish this ten
times? I don't know. But instead of
attacking the entire issue - go for illogical
aspects instead.
Now, as for Welfare, I'm not opposed to
it. I know that many individuals need this
money to support themselves, but when they
remain on it for twelve to eighteen years at
a stretch and keep having more children in
hope they'll get more money every week, well,
let's just say it's ridiculous and
aggravating as hell. That's abusing the
system, abusing our generosity, and directly
(not indirectly) abusing us.
So if you wish to continue this
psychedelic anarchy which is getting "tres
tacky", just think of all the times you've
built up an appetite by attacking a person
for wearing a fur coat and have quenched that
hunger by going to McDonald's for a cow
burger wrapped in non-environmentally
friendly styrofoam whose life expectancy is
infinitive in comparison to yours.
20/20 ACCEPTANCE
One of the greatest achievements I could
accomplish in my lifetime would be to track
down the nimrod who invented color contacts
and solder a purple bingo chip in his eye.
Yes, Gentle Reader, I have, for the sixth
time in the past hour of watching the boob-
tube, been accosted by one of those turn-
your-gross-disgusting-dull-blah-brown-eyes-
blue commercials by Durasoft.
How insulting can one be? Do they think
that by humiliating the simple-minded
consumer in the most degrading way possible
that they'll sell more contacts?
Okay, dumb question.
But I fail to see the logic in parents
buying their brown-eyed 20/20 visioned kids
color contacts when they have no use for
them. Do they honestly think that we're all
so maladjusted that we can be ridiculed to
the point of genocide on the blue-eyed
community?
I like my brown eyes. They're dark.
They're mysterious (or so I've been told),
and only a brown-eyes person can manage a
truly intense stare that will knock you to
your knees. It's true. I've compared.
I may be coming off a tad bit on the
righteous side, but I've seen the other side
of the issue, so I can be objective. yes, I
fell victim to an over zealous optician who
talked me into purchasing lime-green
contacts. Needless to say, I looked rather
possessed. Kind of like the Exorcist gone
amuck.
My parents (amazed that my head wasn't
spinning and I wasn't vomiting guacamole)
whole-heartedly agreed. To be honest,
someone with near-black eyes shouldn't even
consider this course of action. It looks
'tres fake' and a little like you were
playing once too often with their green
crayon and a cigarette lighter.
This is almost as bad as those window-
lensed glasses. You remember; sensitive
individuals in black wearing horn rimmed
glasses trying to pull off the pseudo-
intellectual scam? Yes, nauseating, wasn't
it?
So to end this soliloquy gracefully, I
shall quickly recap. Unless you want to look
like some mutant spawned by Margaret Thatcher
and Abbie Hoffman, stick to your laser-lens-
coke-bottle-glasses and suffer your genetic
deficiency during your own personal despair
hour. And if you have 20/20 vision and will
'just die' if you don't have feather-blue
eyes, shut-up, schmuck, and get your head out
of the fifth dimension where it doesn't
belong.
That's it. End of sermon.
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE UNDERCOVER:
A Week in the Life of a Trendy
Recently, I infiltrated one of the
strangest and least understood groups of
people in our society, for one week I became
a trendy. That's right folks, I entered the
fast paced world of Polo shirts, standardized
haircuts and Cavaricci pants to become
teenager number 5184B.
I was amazed at the time that had to be
put into learning things like how to match
your Polos, how to blend into a crowd and
hardest of all, how to tolerate rap music.
I went all out in an attempt to answer
the questions that those of us who value
their individuality are constantly wondering
about. Things like "How and why do girls get
their hair so high?" and "When are pants too
baggy?".
The first thing that I learned was that
you have to spend a lot of time at the mall.
It seems to be the hub of activity for the
trendy. Frequenting stores like Express,
Merry Go Round and DJs is a must. Of course,
you can't forget to make fun of those who are
different from you, those that don't fit in
are not tolerated.
After making sure that I was wearing
exactly what everyone else was, I decided to
go home. Being a trendy takes a lot more
work than I thought it would. I learned a
lot the first day, but I had a lot more to
learn before my quest would be finished.
CENSORSHIP
The recent trend of censoring what we
read, hear and see has appeared again in our
own backyard. This backyard happens to be in
Royal Oak, at Off the Record, where a poster
of the cover to the new Jane's Addiction
album was confiscated by the police. The
poster was taken due to it's alleged
profanity, after a "concerned" citizen
reported it to the Royal Oak Police
Department. The so-called harmful matter was
a picture of three (3) nude figures, one of
which was a female. I'd like to ask this
person what is so harmful about the human
body? The human body itself is a work of art
which many artists have used in their work.
If the nude human body is harmful then we
should all help this "concerned" person
destroy all precious artwork portraying
nudity including religious artwork. Once
this gets started, who's to say where we draw
the line on what is proper for people to see?
This is only the latest in a series of
events that have appeared recently to
restrict our freedoms. In the past few years
we've had "concerned" citizens tell us that
Noir Leather's window displays are
pornographic and are not proper for us to
see. Not only what we see and hear are being
challenged, but also what we read. How many
of you remember the protests outside Chosen
Books? These self-righteous fools decided
that WE did not want their type of store in
"our" society. Needless to say both of these
stores are still in operation, despite the
so-called "corrupt morals" these stores push
on our kids. What this boils down to is that
these fools claim that they need to restrict
certain things to "adults" so as not to
corrupt our youth.
Do the lyrics to songs really harm our
minds or do they open up our minds to the
horror of the world around us? Most of the
stickered albums contain lyrics that are
harmful if you are rich and right wing. They
say you should listen to songs about life and
how great it is, but life is far from great.
What is so harmful about hearing the truth
instead of listening to lies about some
perfect world that billions of us will never
know? Of course the righteous few know what
is best for you and your friends even though
they live hundreds or thousands of miles from
you. It's time we got together and told them
what WE want and fight for what we feel is
right. Any comments will be welcomed.
ABORTION ISSUES
In the spring of 1991, pregnant young
girls in Michigan may have a new dilemma to
face -- asking their parents if they can have
an abortion. The parental consent law passed
by Legislature will require that young women
17 or under have the permission of their
parents or a judge to terminate a pregnancy.
Supporters of this bill believe that parents
have the right to monitor their child's
health and well-being. This is what the
State of Indiana believed when 17-year old
Becky Bell died due to the complications of a
back-alley abortion in 1988, after she was
afraid to tell her parents about her
pregnancy.
The parental consent law discriminates
against girls with poor family communication.
What if a young woman comes from an abusive
family? What if her parents force her to
keep the child and she is unable to care for
it as a normal parent? Where is the young
woman left now? AND WHAT CONSEQUENCES DOES
THE YOUNG MAN WHO IMPREGNATED HER HAVE TO
FACE?
Some Pro-Lifers argue that this bill will
bring family closeness and protection of the
pregnant young woman, when in actuality, they
couldn't care less about the girl or the
unwanted child. Their main aim in their
efforts is to make this world free of sexual
promiscuity. For example, if they believe so
much in "the right to life," what are they
doing about unwanted babies born in this
world today? What are they doing about those
born to crack-addicted mothers, to abusive
parents, or into a poverty and crime-stricken
society? Sure, the children are given the
chance to live, but what good does that do
when the environment outside the womb will
kill you anyway, and in some cases be more
painful?
No one should be given the opportunity to
control another person's life, regardless of
their beliefs. Nor should they have the
right to conform others to have the same
morals as theirs. People should have the
freedom to take responsibility for their own
actions, and not be forced to put their lives
in the hands of others. Each person has
their own life and each should live it as one
feels is right for him/her as an individual.
?????????????????????????????????????????????
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?Do you have a computer, modem and a brain? ?
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?Put them together and what do you have? ?
?A need for Michigan's own alternative, ?
?non-news-think shared information source...?
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?ALTERNATE REALITY BBS ?
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?300-2400 Baud, (313) 777-6472, 24 hrs/day ?
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2,676 words total
Please send of copy of the completed
manuscript to:
Alternate Reality
PO Box 66301
Roseville, MI 48066-6301
Thanks!
- Sara
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