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Show 'Nam veterans' poems show love, guts commercial which is aired with " some frequency over the major , networks and is out to sell the unwary a product not because it is . healthful or necessary for good hygiene as is claimed but because the company which manufactures such items has developed a ' product and is now, by its ad campaign, creating a market for this FDS. Anyone who washes regularly with soap and water has no medical or personal need for such a product and use of a spray like FDS can be more irritating than helpful. Johnson points out this and other '! facts relative to television, which make one think where in the lord's name is the heart and mind of this country taking its people? The pepsi-generation "The ordinary person is a shriveled, dissipated fragment of what a person can be. ..Our capacity even to see, hear, touch, taste and smell is so shrouded in veils of mystification that an intensive in-tensive discipline of unlearning is necessary for anyone before one can begin to experience the world afresh, with innocence, truth and -love."-R.D. Laing "One of my very perceptive students at the University of Waterloo has said: 'The ad-man writes the script for our lives; we read it back.' He is right, but most people must know, some of the time, at some level of their consciousness, con-sciousness, that the reading back of the script is not quite what they meant to say."- Patrick Watson Mechanical consumerism "We all understand that the public service aspects of television are somewhat exaggerated despite what they may claim because they have to be in it for the money, for the ads and so forth." -Richard M. Nixon "The true business of people should be to...think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living."- Buckminster Fuller Johnson has thus quoted many people with varying viewpoints and adds his own opinion of the way in which this world is being shaped. This trend toward ever increasing consumerism looks hideous to him and anyone else trying to be a human in this (our) masochistic society. t by GAYLAN NIELSON Chronicle Staff "Winning Hearts and Mind" (War Poems by Vietnam Veterans) McGraw-Hill Book Company Now that the war in Vietnam is over I guess that it is a bit silly to talk about a book of War Poems written by Vietnam Veterans. Oh well. The book is "Winning Hearts and Minds." It is hard to pick up a book reflecting things like hunger, pain and killing and review it stylistically, but I decided that I would and get that out of the way. The poems in this book are not works of great poetic genius. The end. The poems in this book are of guts, of love, of hate, of disapointment and disillusionment. But most of all this book is the eclectic feelings of soldiers in Vietnam that comes over like a scrapbook of emotions. Not casual There is nothing casual about this book. It begins with an Army Marching Cadence topped by a picture of a sign on the door of Cpt. Frank H. Stewart and 1st Sgt. Dan W. Guton. The sign says: if you kill for pleasure you're a sadist... if you kill for money you're a mercenary., if you kill for both you're a RANGERI1 The Cadence reads: I wanna go to Viet-nam I wanna kill a Viet-Cong With a knife or with a gun Either way will be good fun Stomp'em, Beat'em, Kick'em in the Ass Hide their bodies in the grass Airborne, Ranger, C.I.B. Nobody's Gonna Fxxx With Me. (etc.) One thing about this book, if you don't like poetry at least you can skim through the titles and get an idea of what the poetry is all about. Some of the titles are: "In The Footsteps of Genghis Khan," "Gut Catcher," "The LZ Gator Body Collector," Mourning The Death, By Hemorrhage, Of A Child From Hanoi." and many others. Talk and talk I am lost as to where to go. I feel that I should either talk and talk until someone is convinced or go on and copy down each poem in the book, so somehow everyone will see it but like marching and yelling, you can only harp so long. I would, however, like to quote pieces from one po: j-.y John Stulett who died Ap-:i f, 1971 in Vietnam: The ,y. , ; zr-:.: "Dick Nixon, I Am Lt. John Stulett, U.S. Army, 1st Cav. Div." (written Feb. 15, 19712 months before his death) and it goes: The bullet rivets an eyeball and the eyes stay blind, don't they, Dick? Hands and eyeballs still fly off in all directions forever from the unmercy of Viet Nam.... the hand-blood gurgles now, but his fingers keep twitching to touch something, anything, nothing and that one severed hand dies in elephant grass at the front door to America's conscience. What does it mean? A soldier dies in the puddle as I write this line. a hidjng child convulses as you read it. The Killing is our wound-up clockl tick, tick, tick, tick, trickling away blood, beautiful arms, my drunk buddies and beautiful slant eyes.... a wrinkled man scratches his back up and down on a shrivelled hut-he hut-he doesn't have any arms left. What does it mean? I'm afraid to know. The impact says to me that Mr. Stulett found out whether he wanted to know or not. Pick up "Winning Hearts and Minds" and bleed and weep a little. "Test Pattern For Living" Nicholas Johnson, Bantam Books, Inc. Sept. 1972, $155, 154 pages. byJ.A. KESLER "A twentieth-century guide to coping with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without dropping out." An expose of the whys, hows and wherefores of the impact of what the media of television is all about and the present ghastly misuses perpetrated by said system. 7esf Pattern For Living, written by the present federal communications com-munications commissioner goes into the philosophy of alternate life styles which can be undertaken by the average mainstream of society worker in such a way as to clue people into the fact that, say, using dial soap or drinking Pepsi is not going to enhance whether or not you will be accepted by others, that you will be part of what is happening. hap-pening. For today' women "Today you're all girl, and being a girl was never nicer. Because this is the age of FDS. FDS was created for a uniquely feminine need. FDS, the first feminine hygiene deodorant spray. Lets you feel as fresh and feminine as you look. Enjoy being a girl. Enjoy a feeling of confidence every day. This is the age of FDS." -a television |