University of Arkansas Monticello - Boll Weevil Yearbook (Monticello, AR)

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Son tS ON HIS VACATION THERE 122 Student Life Decade of Crisis Decade of Decision The sixties were a decade of social turmoil, of antiwar and civil rights protest, of social upheaval. The seventies were a decade of change. The eighties will probably be remembered as a decade of crisis, a word which has come to be used as much as is the word “apathy.” Individual situations vary about the nation. Some people fare better than others, but as Americans we are becoming more ALSO... affected as a whole by occurances abroad. As the eighties begin, we face a crisis in leadership, a crisis in Iran, a crisis in Afghanistan, and fuel and inflation crises. As of this writing, there is no end in sight to any of the crises, unless possibly to that of leadership, and apparently it will not be resolved until November, when we’ll face another four years under Jimmy Carter or a change to a somewhat ominous Ronald Reagan. Old-timers assure me that we’ve yet to experience “‘hard times’ despite all of our economical woes. Perhaps that is the only optimistic assessment available in regard to our current situation - we’ve a long way to go before we sink to the low of the Great Depression. It’s true that we continue to zoom around in our cars, though gasoline prices have nearly doubled in the past two years, we continue to pay our rent and put food on the table, though inflation rose to over eighteen percent last year. We continue to feel a modicum of security though the Soviets have surpassed us in ground, sea, strategic air and nuclear strike capabilities. Our Middle-Eastern ace-in-the-hole, Iran, has been wrenched from our grasp. It’s next-door neighbor, Afghanistan, is under total Soviet control. The Soviets have established strongholds in Yemen, Somolia and other strategic points in the Mideast while we’ve condescendingly turned our backs with such iron-gutted statements as ‘‘the status-quo is unacceptable” (Soviet invasion of Afghanistan). We’ve lost our credibility, and consequently power, among our NATO allies and Japan through a flaky hit-and-miss (mostly miss)

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under the unyielding sun. Tomatoe plants dried up, causing all the fruit to ripen at once, leaving rotting tomatoes on the vine. About the only crop not effected by the heat was cotton, which continued to thrive in spite of the heat and drought. ¢ ¢: 4.64 oa e eee @%, Left: Temperatures climbed above 100 degrees to break a state record of 10 consecutive days. Above: UAM students were forced to peel out of sweat-soaked clothing while enjoying some of their favorite pasttimes. Arkansas poultry farmers buried millions of breeder hens that died of suffocation in the intense heat. Milk production from dairy cattle dropped dramatically, while in Texas, ranchers shipped their steers to the northern plains to find grazing land. Temperatures rarely dropped below 80 degrees at night, and rose to the mid 90’s by 9 a.m. About the only people who enjoyed the summer of 1980 were swimming pool operators, ice cream vendors, and air conditioner salesmen. Student Life 121 ne

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foreign policy. And it’s our fault. Americans have become a bit to nosy concerning government ; affairs. At the risk of condoning covert activities, had the CIA not had its hands bound by the purges of the seventies and subsequently its effectiveness drastically diminished, many of | our problems could have been foreseen. American intelligence actually warned of potential | dangers to Americans in Iran, but the Carter administration characteristically listened with deaf ears. Though far from the point of desperation, America and the rest of the “‘free” world is staking | much on the outcome of November’s election. The question is, do we stick with an ex-peanut farmer, or elect an ex-actor as our next President? As for this writer, politics and acting seem much nearer kin than politics and peanut farming, even if the actor is typically | characterized (especially by | Pravda) as as ‘“‘warmonger.”’ Priorities and Progress A special interest group is a section of humanity, or in our case, Americans, opposed or devoted to a certain ideal or situation. As a rule, in order for them to have any success they must deal with a subject common to many Americans, and sympathetic to the same. Civil rights groups represent a special interest, and rightfully so as our country is founded, or supposedly so, upon justice, freedom, and equality for all of its citizens. The particular special interest that is so newsworthy today is that anti-nuclear group. They’re mothers and housewives and doctors, automobile mechanics, ex-flower children and earth- people, lawyers, politicians, in short, regular people like you and I, screaming ‘‘please save our children,” and “‘Hell no, we won’t glow.”’ With those battle cries they’ve lobbied their way into the Democratic Platform committees and have ala Ted Kennedy written in a provision that declares that nuclear energy IMPEACH HIM ABSURD PT, INFLATION THERMOMETER gradually be dumped like so much radioactive waste. This was effected at precisely the same time that Jimmy Carter, virtually uncontested Democratic nominee, proclaimed to a Venice Summit the development of that same fuel source. Small wonder that Europe has lost faith in the U.S.’s ability to make a clear decision. Nuclear alternatives? They are scarce. Oil is out of the question. Coal reignites the anti-pollution lobby and will result in the destruction of many beautiful acres, though it is our most practical alternative and considerably less expensive than oil. Solar energy as a sole source of power on a large scale is out of the question until our solar technology has time to advance. Maybe when we can post solar collectors on satellites orbiting earth and micro-wave the energy down to power stations, it will be feasable. For now, though, the idea of solar collectors for every home is not only grossly uneconomical but absurd. The modern home could not possibly function continuously on solar energy without a battery storage system too large to consider. Student Life 123 nnn Dace ee C“C:isCtCC