Volume XCI Number 55
trojan
University of Southern California
Thursday April 1, 1982
Conrad editorializes on cartooning, imagination
By Marc Igler
Staff Writer
Paul Conrad shuffles back and forth in a small room behind Hancock Auditorium, casually smoking a pipe. The showcase cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times is due onstage in five minutes and doesn’t really know what to expect from the audience.“Do they laugh here?” he innocently asked. “I sure as hell hope so. I can’t stand it when they don’t.”
Not everyone laughs at Conrad’s daily cartoons. Some get downright hostile, claiming that he is cruel, insensitive and even ignorant. But he got his share of laughs Wednesday from the student-filled audience, which came to see the man who creates the controversial pictorial commentaries for the Times.
“Whether my readers agree with me is almost beside the point,” the 57-year-old cartoonist said. “It’s not my job to be agreeable. I just try to get them to think about the issues and maybe get involved. When that happens, I think I've done my job.”
Conrad didn’t reveal any secrets Wednesday. He readily admitted that even he doesn’t know what separates true inspiration from sheer banality, the sort of banality that he sees today in many individuals who try to pass themselves off as editorial cartoonists.
“I honestly can’t tell you wrhat it takes. I don’t like the term genius, but I don’t know any other way to describe just how this computer works,” he said pointing to his head.
But one quality that Conrad said a cartoonist must have to be successful is anger. “You’ve got to be angry in this business, or you're not going to go anywhere. It bothers me that more people aren’t angry, angry at anything. That's what inspires ideas.”
Conrad said he feels this lack of anger can be seen in many of today’s editorial cartoons. He compared these cartoonists with television’s daily sit-coms. which he called “worthless" because
(Continued on page 3)
Student Senate resolution OK’d; condemns Family Protection Act
By Eric Onstad
Staff Writer
After heated debate, barely a quorum of the Student Senate passed a resolution on Tuesday condemning the Family Protection Act — congressional legislation that could cut federal funds to the university for its recognition of gay rights groups on campus.
Mark Slavkin, author of the resolution, warned of a “loss of personal freedom for all members of the university community" if the act became law. He then asked his fellow senators to “be pragmatic and set aside all personal views” when considering the resolution.
“Because the university recognizes the Gay and Lesbian Student Union and offers birth-control counseling, all federal funding would be cut to the university,” Slavkin told the senators.
The paragaph of House Resolution 3955 that Slavkin said would financially destroy the university states: “No federal funds may be made available under any provision of federal law to any public or private individual, group, foundation commission, corporation, asso-
ciation. or other entity for the purpose of advocating, promoting, or suggesting homosexuality, male or female, as a lifestyle.”
Dan Dunmoyer, a residence hall senator, led the opposition to Slavkins's resolution: “A few bad sections don’t make the whole 67-page bill bad.”
“Even from my conservative side, I don't like some parts of the bill,” Dunmoyer said. “But 95 percent of the senators haverv’t read the rest of it."
Dunmoyer cited provisions of the bill that offer tax credits and deductions to households with elderly dependents who would otherwise have to be put in convalescent homes, and the bill would provide for the “free exercise of voluntary prayer.”
But most senators who spoke up were in favor of the resolution either in their concern for human rights or for financial reasons.
John Kennedy, a commuter senator, suggested that the beneficial parts of the legislation were written only to distract from the sections that would restrict First Amendment rights.
“The First Amendment is the most sacred part of the constitution,” Senator Alan Cox agreed.
Tracy Gay, from the Gay and Lesbian Student Union, told the senators that instead of losing federal funds, the university would probably ban his organization from campus and inhibit personal freedoms in other ways.
Dunmoyer proposed that the good and bad sections of the bill be judged separately so that the vote would only condemn the paragraphs that are objectionable, and not the sections that Dunmoyer believed to be beneficial.
He then suggested that the senate postpone a vote on the bill until all senators could read the whole bill, but a vote was called and taken.
The resolution was approved by a seven to four vote with two abstentions.
It w’as not until the senate considered a subsequent resolution concerning the University Center that someone raised the question of whether a quorum (a majority of the 30-member senate) was pre-(Continued on page 5)
Vidal, civil rights leaders attack Family Protection Act
Claim bill sets back minorities and women
By Steve Padilla
Editor
Gore Vidal, a recently announced candidate for the Democratic senatorial nomination, joined threecivil rights leaders Wednesday in calling on students to oppose the Family Protection Act. a conservative piece of legislation which one speaker called an "attempt to legislate morality."
Speaking to several hundred students at an emotional noontime rally on the Student Activities Center patio, Vidal not only encouraged students, as did all of the speakers, to oppose the act but to realize their political and creative potential.
“You don't know how much power you have,” Vidal said to the vocal crowd. “I have traveled to cities all over the state, and you should see the
students at Chico and Santa Cruz where they have taken over the city councils and the mayor. Get cracking. Do something.”
Midge Costanza, a former assistant to President Jimmy Carter, said. "For God's sake, don't lay down and allow them (the New Right) to step on you. You're important.
“We should be given the opportunity to soar and express ourselves as human beings.”
Costanza said the Family Protection Act, which is now pending in Congress, would threaten the gains made by women and racial minorities in the last 50 years. One speaker called the act "insidious” while another termed it “domestic, repressive legislation.”
A wide-ranging bill, the act calls for a variety (Continued on page 5)
SUSAN McGRIEVY
GORE VIDAL