University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Mimers Get All Bent Out Of Shape

A good-natured spontaneous
crowd of students gathered about
Homer on the Lawn the other day.
The occasion was a sample of the
acting ability and philosophy of the
San Francisco Mime Troupe. They
are a talented group of performers,
who entertained everyone with
their satirical skits from how to
rip-off the telephone company to
the problems involved in our
ecological crisis.

After the performance I asked
one of the players if she realized
that while she didn't pay for her
telephone calls, someone else did.
Since the Federal Government has
set a rate of profit that the
telephone company cannot exceed,
if the company finds that a number
of calls are never paid for, they will
raise their rates to cover the
loss the very thing the Troupe is
against!

After being told I had missed
the point, but more convinced of
the opposite, another member of
the Troupe interrupted our
conversation. He began a didactic
tirade on the presence of the
military on the Grounds and about
the profit motive of General
Motors. When he told me he
wanted to let the "people" run
G.M., I wondered who he thought
presently was in managerial control.
When he told me the men from the
assembly lines should be put in
charge, I was compelled to inform
him I thought his replacement for
the present management of G.M.
would not be up to the task. At
that point this member of the
Troupe got bent out of shape and
called me a pig. While I attempted
to determine that what we had was
a difference of opinion, he again
reaffirmed his belief that I was no
better than the top-management of
Animal Farm.

I can only surmise that anyone
who differs in opinion with this
member of the Frisco Troupe is
thought a pig. So, if you happen to
pay to see a performance, be
assured that if you don't agree with
everything they say, at least one
member of "F" Troupe will think
you are a pig!

'One Russia'

I was disturbed at the omission
of several points in your "One China" November 3, 1971 article.
For the first time in its 26-year
history, the U.N. took the drastic
step of expelling a member. And it
did so not because Taiwan
perpetrated any acts of aggression,
but to appease a major power.
Mainland China's price for
admission to the U.N. was the
expulsion of Taiwan. Any
organization which appeases a large
member at the expense of a smaller
one is guilty of compromising its
honor, and perhaps its future.

Also disquieting was the
Assembly's disregard for the U.S.
plea that expelling a member isn't a
major issue, what is?

Finally to your statement that,
"the admission of Peking as the
only true representative of the
Chinese people had to come." Since
important issues can now be
determined by close votes (Peking
passed by 59 to 55). I think we
should re-evaluate the distribution
of votes. The Soviet Union now
casts 3 votes under the fiction that
Byelorussia and the Ukraine are
separate nations. The U.N. has
ruled that there is only one China.
Now everyone knows that there is
only "One Russia" and that
Byelorussia and the Ukraine are a
part of it with infinitely less
independence than Taiwan. Why
not expel them?

Cool Doorman

I commend Mr. Read's letter on
the purpose, for the Door Checker
at Alderman Library. I agree in the
spirit of his remarks, that an
urgency does exist to control the
number of books that end to lose
their way in or out of the library.

I do not agree, however, that
the "primary function" of the Door
Checker is a simple chore of
correlating a book's call number
against the charge-out card. It is a
position of higher discretion, one in
which all who border in and around
the University community should
take note, it is hardly an equitable
issue to denounce a library for its
shortage of new books when it has
a full time task accounting for its
present volumes.

How many of us, in the rush for
time, wanted nothing more but a
book or two without all the fuss?
After all, we do live under the
honor system.

The Door Checker, therefore,
makes us aware that we have a
responsibility to cooperate. If, as
Mr. Read states, that the Door
Checker only monitors call
numbers, and saves us from undue
fines, then it is a by-product, if not
the job, of his cool imagination.