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Page 14 The Other Paper COMING DOWN ON THE PRESS - AGAIN Ski Club SKI CLUB is planning a trip to Mt. Snow, Vt. for 5-1/2 days, starting January 7th to the 12th. Mt. Snow features four double chair lifts, two bubble-covered chair lifts, two enclosed automatic telecabine gondolas and miles of trails and runs for everyone from novice to expert! Facilities include a 5-story base lodge, cafeteria, heated out door pool, children’s nursery and ski rental shop. NORTH FACE: Served by main area lifts and it has its own double chair lift, 13 trails and miles of challenging runs for ad vanced to intermediate and expert skiers. FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact Ski Club, Room L 008,11 A.M. Wednesday. Or, Bruce Remillard, 451-0943; Ric Ransom, By Michael Blake Alternative Features Service On May 10, 1972, Los Angeles Free Press reporter Ron Ridenour grabbed his camera, notepad and press card and dashed off to cover the anti-war action at Richard Nixon’s Los Angeles headquarters. Dozens of other media men also went, and after about 1,500 arrests they sauntered back to offices all over the city to file their stories. Ron Ridenour, however, went straight to jail, and if there was ever any hope that alternative media outlets were making progress in their battle for equal treatment—well, forget it. The problem’s an old one for editors and staff of newspapers and magazines that have little money, little political clout or neither. For years college papers have tried fruitlessly to obtain police presscards, undergrounds have lived with wiretaps and intermit tent raiding, and news services 'have been plagued with a lack of encouragement or cooperation from established newsgatherers. And through the length and breadth of the country case after case crops up involving a reporter who got arrested (or worse) trying to do his or her job. Ridenour is a classic example of the above but the really shocking aspect Of his particular case is the penalty imposed. It leaves little doubt that the war on dissent which has raged for nearly a decade is escalating like never before. In brief, Ridenour’s case goes like this: Shortly after arriving at the scene, Ridenour saw a Viet Vet, a paraplegic, being tossed out of his wheelchair; he started shooting photos. Two undercover men, John G. Schmitz, the presiden tial candidate of the American In dependent Party, is not making much of a splash this election. But that’s only because, as the Southern California Congressman himself explains, the television networks and national news services are engaged in a conspiracy of silence against him. And no wonder. For Represen tative Schmitz, darling of the right wing and candidate of the party which at first backed Governor George Wallace, sounds just like a Communist dupe. He does, of course, support his local police, God, prayer in segregated schools, individual rights, and free enterprise. He opposes abortion, busing, bureaucracy, federal welfare programs, higher taxes, the United Nations, and above all — he says — socialism, communism, and other totalitarian “isms”. Democrats and Republicans, he explains, are just two wings of American Socialism, and the only difference he sees between the two major presidential candidates is this: “Mr. Nixon wants to surrender South Vietnam to the Communists on the installment plan, while Mr. McGovern wants to surrender im mediately.\ Yet when Schmitz comes to pass the blame, he doesn’t point the finger at Moscow, Peking, Gus Hall, Angela Davis, or even Dr. Spock. Not at all. When Schmitz un masks “the real conspiracy”, he joins with the Communists in at tacking the key institutions of American capitalism. In opposing American policy in Vietnam, for example, he does not single out a few traitors in the struggling to overpower the veteran, saw Ridenour clicking away and ordered a uniformed of ficer to arrest him. Ridenour asked his captor what the charge was and got an “I don’t know” as he was being whisked to the station. The next morning, his camera and freshly exposed film in hand, his $500 bail made, Ridenour walked out of the station to prepare for trial on charges of unlawful assem bly and failure to disperse—alleged violations which lift few eyebrows after so many years of wholesale use by law enforcers. The Freedom of Information subcommittee of the California Radio and Television News Association volunteered to testify in Ridenour’s behalf, and Art Kevin of the Radio and Television Newscasters of America said, in a statement to the press, that Ridenour’s secret and trial amoun ted to nothing more than an at tempt by law enforcement to con trol the communications media. None of the official condem nations seemed to help; Ridenour went on trial as scheduled. The police lobbied for additional charges of resisting arrest and striking a police officer, but the prosecution declined. The charge of failure to disperse was quickly dropped. After a few hours of deliberation, the jury ended the five-day trial by returning a verdict of guilty on the solitary misdemeanor violation—unlawful assembly. The verdict came despite the testimony of Dwayne Johnson, an editor of the Los Angeles Times and current president of the Southern California chapter of the journalism fraternity, Sigma Delta Chi. Johnson said that Ridenour’s conduct at the demonstration was Department of State, as did Senator Joseph McCarthy. Schmitz lambastes American business, which makes money selling the sinews of war both the United States and the Communist bloc. In charging the news media with conspiracy to silence him, he does not simply criticize the newsmen as did Vice-President Spiro Agnew. Schmitz calls on the carpet the “fat-cat” owners of NBC or CBS, some of the most important names in American finance. Schmitz hits them all, all of the old Communist bugaboos: Wall Street, the international banking houses, and the name-brand cor porations; the big foundations, the RAND Corporation, and the touncil on Foreign Relations; the Fords, the Rockefellers, and the Kennedys. It is these wealthy, highly- educated insiders who control both Communism and creeping Socialism, Schmitz explains. And they do it not to create some classless society but to further their own private control of the inter national financial system and to satisfy their own “international conspiratorial drive for power.” The analysis is a bit simplistic, borrowed heavily from Gary Allen’s Non Dare Call it Con spiracy, for which Schmitz wrote the introduction. The constant harping on “conspiracies” is un necessary. But shorn of the boggle-de-gook, Schmitz’ line is exactly what one might expect from I.F. Stone, the Revisionist Historians, and other tools of the Communistic New Left. Surely the Congressman shouldn’t expect the more established media to join him in purveying such vicious propaganda. consistent with his reponsibilities as a reporter. In spite of a relatively long trial and the usual legal fees, Ridenour had cause to take heart. All the charges save one had been dropped and his case had focused much at tention on one of the underground press’ biggest headaches. Then, on September 19, Judge Armand Arabian leaned over his bench and dropped a bomb: he sentenced Ridenour to one year in the L.A. county jail—one year for unlawful assembly. More than one former inmate has said that county jail, in Los Angeles, makes one pine for prison. Of course it wasn’t Ridenour personally who got the sentence. It was his long involvement in a wide spectrum of political endeavors and his frequent criticism of the police. The Free Press was also being punished. Ridenour is being silenced with a year in jail (not to speak of financial costs incurred in appeals) and the Free Press is being silenced to a degree with the loss of a vital reporter. In a superbly documented and researched book titled Press Freedoms Under Pressure, Fred P. Graham goes a long way to explain why Ron Ridenour and others like him have been sentenced, why un derground offices are harrassed, and why college papers can’t get police credentials: “At one local level,” Graham says, “law enforcement officials have used their authority against the underground press. They have never used it against the established press. They seem to assume that underground publications forfeit some degree of their protection under the First Amendment when they violate public standards of taste or morality or have commented about the police. As a result, a double standard for treatment of the un derground and the established press has developed — a double standard that implies unequal treatment under the law.” If anything can be learned from the problems which Ron Ridenour and the Los Angeles Free Press now face, it is that the double stan dard is far from being trials and tribulations to come. Michael Blake is a former editor of the University o f New Mexico Daily Lobo, o f the Los Angeles Free Press, and o f the Los Angeles Staff. PROCEEDINGS STARTED TO FIRE MORRIS The University of Washington has started proceedings to fire economics professor Jeff Morris, despite the fact that he has over a year left on his contract. The stated reason for the dismissal ac tion is that Dr. Morris gave every one of the 675 students in his in troductory economics class an “A”. Defending his grading philosophy, Morris declared: “Grades destroy real incentive to learn, force students to treat their teachers as cops, and alienate students from each other by fostering com p etition and discouraging cooperation.” Many of Morris’ former students have joined him in his fight to keep his job. They vouch for his teaching ability and say that the mellow atmosphere in his classes was much more conducive to lear ning than the usual tension-filled and, for some, terror-stricken lec ture hall. 457-4165. HITCH H IKIN G Continued from Page 5 , Col. 3 go. A large sign with the letters O.C.C. printed on it is good, however make sure that the letters are big enough to be seen from a distance of at least two feet or so, this should be the absolute minimum. Block letters are suggested since Olde English or German Script letters are difficult to read and the motorist might go careening into a telephone pole while trying to read your sign. Your facial expression plays an important role in your ability to get a ride. A long pitiful ex pression will make the driver feel guilty, hopefully. Make sure to look him (or her) straight in the eye for the most devastating effect. When a car passes you MAKE SURE that he isn’t going to give you a ride before giving him the finger. Countless numbers of rides have been lost by sneering ob scenities at the driver just as the car pulls to the curb and the door is being unlocked. Here are some more helpful hints for you hearty souls: Avoid hitch-hiking near large puddles since some motorists have the perverted sense of humour to drive through them at not less than ninety miles an hour thus making you look like you took a shower with your clothes on. Don’t run out in front of cars flailing your arms and screaming wildly asyou may get a ride only as far as Community General Hospital. Watch out for those white cars with the funny red lights on top as your destination may take an altered course also. Don’t bother with cement trucks or busses. Threatening cars with rather large rocks if they don’t pick you up is also unadvisible since they may steer towards you and step on the gas claiming self defense at the inquest. For the female readers among you: Dress arid act sexy. Hitchhike in the nude if weather permits, but don’t accept rides from cement trucks and those white cars with the funny red lights on top. I hope this article has been help ful as well as entertaining. Now that you know the fundementals, THUMBS UP!! (or out) PSYCH O L O G ICAL WAR Hanoi Radio has denounced recent rumors of an imminent peace settlement in Vietnam. It called such reports “ a psychological-war tactic employed by Nixon against the campaign platform of the Democratic Party.” It further stated: “This untenable fraud not only draws contempt from the world public but also enables them to recognize Nixon’s cruel and tricky natqre more clearly.” ARE Y O U A SH O R T SLEEPER? Are you a “short sleeper” or a “long sleeper?” Researchers at the Boston State Hospital sleep laboratory have found: “One’s per sonality and life style appear to have an important relationship to the amount of sleep one needs.” Short sleepers (fix hours or less a night) tend to be energetic ex troverts who have few complaints about their health or the state of the world and often avoid , problems by keeping busy. Long sleepers (nine hours or more a \ night) are generally creative and j artistic introverts. They worry, and ; complain a lot and use sleep as an 1 escape from realty. Writing in the Archives of Psychiatry, Dr. Ernest Hartmann states that a person’s sleep pattern “seems to be set in high school or college and con tinues through fife.” THE RIGHT W ING’S DARLIHG IS A COMMUNIST DUPE
