ustxtxb_obs_1969_11_21_50_00013-00000_000.pdf

your opinions to feel very let down. Where’s the valedictory? What were you trying to say? There is, I think, an article to be done in the Observer about how Lyndon Johnson reached the ultimate national power at the moment when the University of Texas reached national prominence thanks to Harry Ransom and Logan Wilson and some others. The story has shape and a certain cohesion. The next chapter, with John Silber and Norman Hackerman and Frank protagonists, may be even more significant. A major state university in the United States has become a very powerful and unpredictable monster. But this is not the article you wrote. No, all I understand is that you were moved to sit down and start writing something. But what followed was a mistake. You would have been well advised to shake the dust of Austin off your feet in private, not in print, and not in the Observer, which should not have indulged your misplaced sense of the occasion. Thanks, John, for your kind words about me. You must know that I’ve temporized as much as most men. Good luck at Buffalo. May your regrets shrivel and blow away. Roger Shattuck, 21, rue Rollin, Paris 5e, France. Mr. Shattuck is a professor of French and English at UT-Austin. Reflections Houston Good news for a change. The FCC finally has given Pacifica Radio the go-ahead in Houston. On Feb. 15 of next year Houston area residents with FM radios will be given an alternative to the top twenty hits, the insipid talk shows, and the meaningless headlines the commercial stations call news. All kinds of music rock, classical, blues, folk, electronic, and honest-to-God avant garde. Children’s programs. Intelligent discussion of current events by the people involved in them. Ninety minutes of news read in a calm voice every evening. These are some of the things Pacifica will offer. It will not be for all of the people all of the time. Station manager Larry Lee says Pacifica is “intellectual radio.” Perusing the list of tapes the program manager plans to borrow from the other Pacifica stations, the BBC, and the CBC, I noted such titles as “The Epic of Gilgamesh,”-the Babylonian account of the W. W. Heath’s Response Austin Thank you for the opportunity to reply to Sullivan’s article wherein [Obs., Oct. 10] he begins his reference to me with “In 1961 the chairman of the board of regents was still W. Since my tenure as chairman of the board of regents began in December, 1962, and ended in December, 1966, Sullivan is apparently as confused as to who was still chairman in the “days” he criticized as he is as to my record on integration while chairman. When I retired as chairman I was quoted widely as saying, “The proudest single accomplishment of the period in which I have been chairman is the integration of the University of Texas as provided by the Supreme Court in the Brown case” with all deliberate speed, “and without federal marshals, troops, and without bloodshed.” Apparently the Supreme Court had not read Sullivan’s further statement that “Civil rights legislation soon put a stop to that sort of idiocy” when it wrote its very recent decision ordering the state of Mississippi to integrate all its public schools immediately. W. W. HEATH, 202 Perry-Brooks Bldg., Austin, Tex. 78701. flood; “The Life of a Prostitute”; readings from The Hobbit; and productions of all of Shakespeare’s plays. Pretty heavy stuff. Among the local programs planned by Pacifica-Houston, is a “How To” series which Sam Hudson, the program manager, says will provide “common knowledge that isn’t all that common.” Installments might include,. “How to Buy a Used Car,” “How to Get Out of an Emergency Ward Alive and Solvent,” and “What to do with the Dead Body.” Public service programs will not be the stodgy kind one finds on most stations. Hudson plans to gather a team of housewives to investigate the consumer situation on a show called “Coffee Clatch.” Manufacturers will be given equal time as long as they have the gumption to go on the air with the housewives. The station will try to get at the quality of life in Houston through such programs as “The Wedding of the Week,” which might chronicle a high society do from the engagement announcement through the reception or a Japanese wedding. Hudson hopes to find suburban correspondents who can write letters from Sharpstown or the Fifth Ward, much like the New Yorker’s “Letters from Paris.” This is an urbane and innovative kind of programming. The foundation’s other stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco-Berkeley, and New York have been the subjects of repeated controversies, because they are bold enough to exercise the rights of free speech. WBAI, the New York station, received critical publicity this year for documenting anti-semitism in Harlem. The programs included some pretty strong language and ideas that were definitely offensive to most people. The FCC, however, defended WBAI because, as commission member .Nicholas Johnson wrote, “If anti-semitic sentiments exist among portions of New York’s population, then no valid social purpose can be served by suppression of this important fact.” Pacifica broadcasters believe it is their duty to report and discuss what is going on, and that means letting everyone from the Klan to the Communist Party have his say. It means hearing an occasional obscene word on the air. The stations have a radical reputation, mostly in conservative and reactionary circles, but it is the sort of radical exercise of rights on which this democracy is based, the uninhibited airing of ideas that is desperately needed in the rest of America’s media. Pacifica’s success will depend on its listeners, for they will be station’s sponsors as well as its programmers. The Pacifica Foundation is a non-profit institution, and its stations do not have commercials. They depend upon subscriptions to stay on the air. So far, approximately 1,500 persons have subscribed to the Houston station for 15 tax-deductible dollars a year. They will receive a monthly program guide starting in February. A minimum of 4,000 subscribers will be needed to keep Pacifica-Houston in broadcasting money next year. Volunteers are needed to supplement the station’s nuclear staff. Houstonians interested in producing programs \(the station’s professionals will provide you with a tape recorder and some in the office, or planning fund-raising events, should drop by the office at 1200 Bissonnet. Pacifica is an ambitious project. I hope Houston is ready for it. People have forgotten how to listen to radio, because there has been nothing to listen to. “Chewing gum for the mind,” station manager Lee calls the commercial stations. Out of the 7,000 licensed AM and FM stations in the United States, only a handful are giving the public something to think about. Houston is lucky that a group of dedicated and talented people are offering them such an experiment in communication and community. K.N. November 21, 1969 13 Good News