ustxtxb_obs_1975_07_04_50_00015-00000_000.pdf

Page 5

by

perfectly and does immediately. Results are inconclusive. He assumes the aphids are going crazy, because he has a good attitude. More tomatoes appear, all of them growing larger by the day. They are all green. The urban farmer is wondering when they turn red. He makes his second mistake by calling three experts at three local plant shops. The experts are in a three-way disagreement over how long it takes for the tomatoes to .ripen. The sort of advice one gets for free, He is saved by yet another miracle. One by one, a day or two at a time, the tomatoes turn red. They are huge by this time. They taste markedly better than the ones he is used to. The plants likely have catface, cutworms, and psyllid yellows, but are plugging onward. He attempts to give a pair of particularly fine specimens to his neighbor, but she declines, having a degree in horticulture and a few plants of her own. He attempts to give them to the landlord, the postman, the butcher, and a golden retriever. They are all harvesting their own. He sits in his apartment with forty pounds of ripe tomatoes overhead, experiencing that most shattering of all experiences. Success. [j] BOOKPLATES. Free catalog. Many beautiful designs. Special designing too. Address: BOOKPLATES, P.O. Box 28-1, Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387. PLAYING THE RECORDER IS EASY. Free catalog, best recorders, recorder music. Beginner’s Pearwood Soprano Book, $11.95. Amster Music, 1624 Lavaca, Austin. GUITAR PICKERS. Buy your guitar strings from us and save 20%. Mail orders accepted. Amster Music, 1624 Lavaca, Austin. JOIN THE ACLU. Membership $15. Texas Civil Liberties Union, 600 West 7th, Austin, Texas 78701. THE ENLIGHTENED REALTORS. If you don’t need to buy a house in North Dallas, call us anyway. Still in business after supporting Adlai and Sissy. Jac A. Austin Co. Realtors, 7007 Preston BOOK-HUNTING? No obligation search for rare or out-of-print books. Ruth and John McCully. ARJAY Austin, Texas 78703. FEMINIST COUNSELING/NONSEXIST THERAPY. Referral list. Call 474-5408 in Austin. Communication On Hearts and Minds I found your recent review of the Vietnam war documentary, Hearts and Minds, to be wrong-headed and not a little petty \(see Obs., To your reviewer, Rod Davis, Hearts and Minds “is propaganda, not art,” and dangerous propaganda at that. Davis says the film plays Joe McCarthy’s old game: getting us to hate without thinking. For Davis, Hearts and Minds is just A Clockwork Orange and 1984 “with a sympathetic end.” Now this is dragging out the heavy artillery. \(You wonder how Davis forgot to throw in Brave New World, Can this film be the mindlessly manipulative propaganda all thinking persons should fear? It is not. I think Mr. Davis’s central criticism is dead wrong and that his review does a disservice to a fine film \(not to mention a cheap shot he takes at the film’s [ THE BICENTENNIAL COLLECTION OF TEXAS SHORT STORIES edited by James P. White. 25 new stories from important contemporary Texas writers in a handsome illustrated gift edition. $5.95 plus 5% sales tax. Order from: Texas Center for Writers Press, Air Terminal Station, Box 6281, Midland, Texas 79701. NEW ORLEANS ON $8 A YEAR. The Weekly Courier, 1232 Decatur, 70116. GENERAL HOME AND AUTO REPAIRS. JOIN NEGATIVE POPULATION GROWTH, INC. 103 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and help us reduce the population by at least 50%. Free brochure. BOWEL-MOVERS. Reasonable rates. FOLK-GUITAR LESSONS. Bob Reynolds, TUTORING MATHEMATICS & PHYSICS. 454-1159 AUTO WORK. Tune-ups. 454-1159 Let’s deal first with Mr. Davis’s sniffy comment that this film is not art. He supports this dismissal by noting that the film says the war was bad in the same way the government told us the war was good. Now it is quite clear that Hearts and Minds expresses a point of view. The film has no kind words for the domino theory, Vietnamization, or Nguyen Van Thieu. Nor are there sympathetic portraits of Walt Rostow, Richard Nixon, or William Westmoreland. But so what? Since when have artists been denied a point of view? The question is not whether the film takes a position, but whether it maintains its integrity while doing so. The heart of what’s wrong with Davis’s July 4, 1975 15 watch subsequent issues for .. . BILLIE CARR REPORTS Paid Pol. Adv. by Billie Carr Expense Fund 2418 Travis, Houston, Texas. Bob and Sara Roebuck Anchor National Financial Services 1524 E. Anderson Lane, Austin bonds stocks insurance mutual funds optional retirement program RECORDS /MAGAZINES 1st if ‘ANOKA, AUSTIN; TEYAV IN DALLAS’S 1.535 IT411Atc 120511 w i .L0.40\(OVIScu zAgg rr ALSO 610 wASHING+oN IN WAco CLASSIFIED Classified advertising is 20d per word. Discounts for multiple insertions within a 12-month period; 26 times, 50%; 12 times, 25%; 6 times, 10%.