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Page 8-Sunday, February 18, 1979-The Michigan Daily

model cities


(Continued from Page 5)
But the true test of any program or
policy is in accomplishing the original
objectives. The main goal of Model
Cities was to coordinate all federal ur-
ban porgrams in a comprehensive long-
term effort to revitalize 150 selected
Model Cities neighborhoods, replacing
the city or county-wide approach. This
deviated from the aims of earlier com-
munity action programs, which focused
on short-term objectives of quickly im-
proving the delivery of services to the
poor. The hope was that city gover-
nment would be closely associated with
funding, thereby giving them a stake in
the program's success.
In Ann Arbor, this direct community
involvement in the program went one
step further. From the drafting of an
application to the creation of a citizens'
board, the Ann Arbor residents who
were directly affected by the program
were intimately involved with its
operation. According to Ezra Rowry,
the former chairperson of the Model
Cities policy board, "The main ob-
jectiVe of the program was to create an
impression that by using federal funds
in an impoverished area, black poverty
could be eliminated."
But with the emergence of CDBG at
the federal level and the election of a
Republican City Council locally, people
began to loose sight of the program's
original objectives. "Nixon said that
improvished people didn't know how to
take care of things-so let the experts
do it," explained Rowry. But the "ex-
perts" proved to have little grasp or
understanding of the problems faced by
the poor. Under the auspices of
Republican Mayor Robert Stevenson,
the program began to run 'into
problems: "Stevenson wanted more of
harvard
(continued from Page 6)
texts, particular professors and
administrators, and a number of repor-
ts and speeches to support his wholly
believeable contention that post-war
Yale was quite a bit bigger on New Deal
economics than God.
His premises were clear, however ob-
jectionable one might find his con
clusion that 1) the Yale alumni are
responsible for the governance of the
private 'college; 2) the alumni
group is overwhelmingly religious and
capitalistic in belief; 3) the educational
overseer has the right (really, the
obligation) to give impetus to values
held to be true; 4) and, therefore, the
only "fair approach" would be to in-
culcate the desired faith and motivation
in the classroom by hiring, well, just
the right sort of instructors.Q.E.D.
Less impressive is LeBoutillier's
shorter imitation. Where. Buckley
restricted his points to Yale, and recor-
ded only facts and impressions
gathered in New Haven from 1946-1950,
his follower has Chosen to rove about
the nation and through time, at one
point tracing his roots back to the
cheever
(Continued from Page 6)
writes as his characters would speak in
their more elevated moments. His
people are neither profound thinkers
nor notably creative; they are middle-
aged dentists and advertising men,
climbing the corporate ladder, coping
with loneliness, aging, and lost oppor-
tunities. These stories have profound
emotional impact, not lasting
philosophical meaning; like Wordswor-
th's poetry, they offer a sharp and pain-
ful focus on the precious things
inevitably and unavoidably lost..

a city operation than a citizen par-
ticipation program," said Wheeler.
"Controls became a lot tighter and
Stevenson set up a Model Cities com-
mittee dominated by his kind of
people-not blacks and poor people."
WHEELER'S administration
(1974-1977) was able to put
Model Cities back together
again, but this time he designed a
program that combined both physical
and social improvements. "If you only
build houses and grow trees, but don't
give the people the opportunity to grow
within themselves,, it is only a
piecemeal job," Wheeler said.
Since Belcher and his Republican
majority assumed office in April, the
Democrats have constantly charged
them with poor management of CDBG
funds-too much support for short-term
pothole repair at the expense of social
services. Street repair, not social ser-

vices, was Belcher's principle cam-
paign promise.
In 1975, Wheeler proposed a $450,000
CDBG-funded Model Cities multi-
purpose center that the Republican-
dominated Council shelved before it
ever reached the drawing boards. Upon
his installment as mayor, Belcher
promised Wheeler no massive cutbacks
in social service funding, in effect
assuring him that his concept would be
realized.
Then Belcher called on city
bureaucrats to find $450,000 to repair
the streets and called Wheeler's brain-
child the "Taj Mahal." Ex-Councilman
Ronald Trowbridge took it a step further
and compared the proposed facility to
the pyramids of Egypt, the Arc de
Triomphe, and Ronald McDonald's
golden arches.
Diversification and expansion of city
services means that Model Cities has

had to compete for scarce resources
and, ultimately, for outside support.
But the program has nonetheless sur-
vived, because the original input came
from the citizens whom it directly
touched. It grew out of well-defined
community needs. Although the finan-
cial strains are clear, there can be little
doubt that these programs will con-
tinue-political reality alone precludes
the possibility of their failure.
The quality of that existence remains
a question, for the present attitude is
evidenced by property tax slashing
amendments and a return to self, not
civic interests. Ann Arbor's diversion
of funds to physical services is typical
and less drastic than many other cities
its size. It is one of the few Michigan
cities that has not been reprimanded
for such shifts by HUD. But the press
for funds is not likely to be alleviated;
neither will the persons to fill human
needs.


'4

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russell


(Continued from Page 3)
President forever. It was five year's,
and we forgot him overnight."
Russell's peculiar position in the
world of comedy often allows him to
lampoon someone in his audience. "If I
see someone walk in, hopefully I'll
know what went on with him that day,
or better yet, if he's made a reser-
vation, I'll ask the Matire d' and find
out what committee he's on."
Russell's dark eyes gleam as he tells
about his experiences with Tongsun
Park, the South Korean businessman
who wreaked havoc on Capitol Hill af-
ter allegedly bribing a number of
congressmen. "He was like the AMA,
he gave to everyone," Russell says. In

his act, Russell admits to saying some
"meaner stuff" about him. "He was
right there," Russell explains, pointing
to a spot two feet away. "Oh, he's so
cool. He is the inscrutable Oriental, this
guy is. He comes up to me afterward
and says, 'Good to see you, Mark. I'll be
in town several weeks, and I hope to
drop in again'."
Russell never seems to be at a loss for
material,,and shouldn't be with a city
like Washington as his basecamp. He
admits, though, that there are periods
when even the sacred New York Times
will leave him empty-handed. During
those dry spells he resorts to his safety
valves: food, consumerism, or
language. Especially language.


Republican party of 1850. So we learn
little of just what Harvard loves or
hates as a group these days. We hear
mostly about why the author hates
snobs and.liberals.
L E BOUTILLIER first came to
Cambridge from an all-boys
boarding school "naive politically, but
quite adamant about preserving the
values such as self-reliance, in-
dividuality, and self-discipline that my
previous school years had- worked to
develop." By the time he graduated
Magna Cum Laude in '76, the four years
had "helped to develop" a bitter feeling
about a hippy tutor in History 97 who
was the closet son-in-law of a
millionaire, about the drug culture
which broke down a roommate, "rever-
se". discrimination, the snobby "final
clubs" of the 'cocktail crowd, and
liberal thinking in general ("a basic
ideological framework I call the
Liberal Mind.").'
Harvard, he contends with little more
than isolated personal experience as
evidence, is hypocritical and anti-
American. Hypocritical, since rich
students and professors who advocate
great distribution of wealth sit on some
of the largest bank accounts in the
country; and anti-American, since,
he, everyone knows Americans don't
back the Great Society programs.
LeBoutillier says he became known
as a good fund-raiser in national GOP
circles after he beat the bushes for, the
man who ran after George McGovern in
the 1974 South Dakota senate cam-
paign. Later he scurried around New
Jersey for Gerald Ford. But neither par-
ty has th'eright formula for national
happiness: "We need to realize that the
true strength of this nation is measured
only by the number f 'happy firesides'
across the land."'-

To maximize the happy hearths,
LeBoutillier suggests a broad range of
social programs on an incentive, rather
than subsidy, basis, "to place the
family much more firmly in control of
the government." He plans to be a
politician, and has gone to business
school because there are too many
lawyers in the field-shades of Nash-
ville's Hal Philip Walker. Like a
president in search of a slogan, he has
labelled his plan "The New
Homestead." Mostly, though, his
solution is simply to vote in politicians
like himself who will really look out for
all of us,
It's a brief book, an hour-and-a-half of
reading time. One annoying habit of the
author's is his generous use of long
quotations from casual conversations
held years earlier, a practice that
leaves the reader wondering just what
is fiction and what is fact.,.His glibly
stereotyped characterizations add to
the effect.
At any rate, Harvard Hates America
is reassuring. If this is the best
argument. against campus liberalism
since Buckley's God and Man, then I'd
give the liberal mind a good decade
more of life.

"Well," he says, pausing momen-
tarily as if trying to come up with
something "original." "You .know,
there are two words in the English
language that will soon be extinct. They
are 'yes' and 'no.' Both of them have
been replaced by 'not really.' The pace
was set by athletes and disc jockeys,
who never put sentences together."
This, clearly, is a purposeful set-up. He
launches into character:
" 'Hey, you played. a good game
today, Spike.' 'Well, not really.' 'You
mean you stunk?' 'Well, not really.' It's
become sort of a national ambiguity. It
really becomes tragic when you look at
the final- report of the House
Assassinations Committee, which says
that the Kennedy assassination was
probably a conspiracy. Probably."
"That's not really what it says,"-a
listener interjects.
"That's right," Russell quips back.
"The Warren Commission was wrong
- probably. Does anyone care? Not
really."
It wasn't until after Watergate that
Russell discovered people outside of the
nation's Capitol were interested in the
goings-on there. He denies the charge
that he has to' water down his material
"so it will play in Peoria."
"What happens to me is I go to all
these towns and play to all these dif-
ferent audiences and they all say to me,
'Well, we like you, we understand you,
but what about when you -leave
Washington?' Now they're asking me
this in Kansas. And I say, 'Well, it's
okay, it works alright.' " He pauses to
take a deep, joke-refueling breath.
"Now, I go back to Washington and get
the real snobs: 'Well, how about the guy
with the can of beer back in Cleveland?'
And I say, 'It's alright.' So I go back to
Cleveland, and the guy with the can of
beer says, 'Well, how 'bout the other
people?'"
Russell shrugs. He has yet to conquer
all of the "other people." But give him.
time.

J /E.CTE

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Cunda-mdtgazine
Co-editors

U*
inside.:
Washington's God and Guy Palazzo
ecst kept man at An art
secret Harvard 'legacy

Owen Gleiberman

Judy Rakowsky

Cover drawing by Lynne Schneider

Supplement to The Michigan Daily;

Ann Arbor, Michigan-Sunday, Februaryi18, 1979,