--friday inorning
Eighty years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Selling sex for profit
-- and no fun
by daniel zwerdling I
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.
News Phone: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1970
NIGHT EDITOR: LYNN WEINER
The future of 'U' housing
UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATORS often
need to be confronted with a crisis
before they decide to stop talking and
start correcting it. However, in questions
concerning housing - f r o m Solstis to
Tent City - their characteristic obstin-
ancy has been unusually great.
Last fall over a hundred freshmen were
forced to sleep in dormitory dining rooms
at West Quad after the Office of Univer-
sity Housing discovered it had over-ac-
cepted applicants for residence hall
spaces. W h e n rooms proved to be un-
available, dozens of students were com-
pelled to inhabit a dining room in Mark-
ley Hall until rooms could be found, in
other dormitories, singles were converted
into doubles and doubles into triples to
provide room for the victims of the foul-
up.
This year the dormitory overcrowding
was less acute. However, last September's
crisis seems to have had no long range ef-
fects. In the past twelve months, the Uni-
versity has failed to present any plans for
low-cost housing near Central Campus.
Apparently the administration had
hoped it could muddle through the com-
plaints about a lack of low-cost housing
without deviating from pushing its tra-
ditional barrack-styled residence halls on
a student community which is becoming
increasingly alienated to the style of liv-
ing that dormitories offer.
TENT CITY succeeded in dramatizing
some of these problems. By occupying
part of the Diag, the campers called at-
tention to the lack of reasonably priced
apartments near Central Campus. Now
that the seriousness of the housing prob-
lem has been shown, new pressure must
be put on the Regents to g i v e housing
construction plans far higher priority
than they have received in recent years.
At their September meeting, the Re-
gents asked students to prepare detailed
plans for new housing units. Hopefully
the University will be willing to listen to
the recommendations from committees it
creates rather than using the establish-
ment of a committee to deflate the pres-
sure for change. The housing question
cannot be wished away - like certain
sections of the proposed by-laws which
have been ignored for over a year.
WHAT IS NEEDED is for the housing
office to work in conjunction with
students to develop plans for low-cost,
apartment-type dwellings which the Uni-
versity community - including non-aca-
demic employes - so desperately needs.
Tentative proposals for new construction
c o u 1 d be presented to the Regents as
early as next month through the Univer-
sity Committee on Communications or
the Committee on Resource Allocation.
A second issue the Regents should con-
sider is the viability of maintaining the
Residence Halls as a financially self-sus-
taining operation. Currently, all housing
expenses plus any funds for new con-
struction must be drawn from a budget
based soley on the income the University
receives from housing fees. Traditionally,
the Office of University.Housing has been
able to generate few surplus funds for
new construction despite the high rates
charged for living in its buildings. The
little money available has been used for
repairs and the construction of Residen-
tial College facilities in East Quad (which
are only partially related to housing.)
It seems evident at this point, and es-
pecially in light of the rising costs of the
housing operation - maintenance and
kitchen workers will be negotiating a new
contract this winter - that the Regents
will have to contribute funds for housing
simply to keep the rates within reason.
The University must face up to the re-
sponsibility it has dodged so long. The
housing shortage is such an urgent prob-
lem that it must not be buried in com-
mittees or ignored any longer.
-PAT MAHONEY
PORNOGRAPHY has come a
long way from the noon
throbbing sex shops on New
York's 42nd Ave. Now Ann Arbor
has its own: the Fourth Avenue
Adult Nees, imported from* the
sick urban sprawl to set up dig-
nified shop in the 1967 All-Amer-
ica City, around the corner from
the Pretzel Bell and only a min-
ute's walk from City Hall.
Why not have a pornography
shop in a quiet, intellectual college
town? People here like sex, too.
Since it opened in June, Adult
News has been straight forward
and honest, not like a certain
store at State and Packard which
hides its warts in shadowy isles.
"We are Ann Arbor's largest erotic
bookstore," proclaims the ads,
"featuring an unspeakably com-
plete line of paperback books,
magazines, newspapers, records,
cards, still photos of local models,
and 8-mm color and black and
white movies, plus a marvelous
selection of 'novelties.'"
To get inside the door for the
smallest peek (the windows are
draped with passion red curtains)
you have to pay a 50 cent deposit.
deductible from any purchase. I
dropped by the shop the other
day after an appointment at the
County Building and found an
assortment of the longest and most
varied dildos in southern Michi-
gan. Six sizes to choose from,
ranging from The Destroyer, a-
two-foot whopper at $14.95, to
Jack the Giant Killer, five inches
long and only $5.95. They come
in two styles, stiff wire core and
flexible. Manager Dana Craw-
ford estimates he sells about one
a day. For $25 one also can buy
two models of artifical yagina, a
hotwater inflatible or a foam rub-
ber cold.
The rest of the merchandise
runs the gammut from under-
ground sex papers like Kiss and
Screw to shelves of passion books,
a homosexual rack which covers
an entire wall, some scientific
looking how to do it sex manuals
(Crawford says these are big sell-
ers), and little color books of sex
more graphic than most of us will
ever have fortune to see. Some of
the covers have tiny white dots
pasted over a crucial square milli-
meter on the photo, seemingly
-Daily--Jim Judkis
admission simply because they're
so damn funny," Crawford says.
One of his favorites is "Dog Days,
by Buster Hymen."
"the aesthetic level is lower
than it should be in most of our
books," complains Crawford, al-
though he adds that some do take
time and money and put out a
really beautiful product.
"NOW IN DENMARK, everyl
thing is superior: the scenes are
staged better, the color process is
infinitely better, and they have a
flair for drama, for real sen-
suality," he says. The American
merchandise Adult News sells
doesn't ome close. A typical maga-
zine I saw, called "Teenager" (but
marked 'For Entertainment of
Adults Only') pictured a hippie
drummer pounding away at his
drums, apparently oblivious to a
young girl bearing her oreasts
next to him. The magazine's best
story looked like "Doing It On the
Rocks."
Denmark is the best. All the reg-
ular newsstands on the Vester-
brogade, Copenhagen's main shop-
ping avenue, sell good pornography
along side the Herald Tribune,
and almost anywhere you can buy
a photo book for two krone from
a little automat just as you would
buy a sandwich in Horn and Har-
dart. No one is afraid to pause
and browse, not old ladies, smartly
dressed housewives, students nor
businessmen.
Ann Arbor has a long way to
catch up. One morning this sum-
mer as I drove down a pastoral
country road in Denmark, I stop-
ped at a tidy white frame house
with a beautiful tulip garden and
a small sign that said "Sex Shop."
A bottle' of milk and a oound of
butter were still sitting on the
stoop from the early morning de-
livery.
When I walked in, a bell tinkled
and the proprietess emerged from
a back room where I could hear
bacon sizzling. She was a prudish,
serious looking woman whom I
suspect District Judge Sanford
Elden could be proud to have for
a wife. After looking around for
a few minutes, I thanked her and
left. She smiled, picked up the
milk and butter, and went back
to the kitchen to make breakfast
for her family.
i
because publishers suffer fits of
false modesty. That way, actually,
you can't reap the real fruits until
you buy a book and open it up.
PIONEERING IN Ann Arbor's
erotic wilderness isn't easy. Since
Adult News opened, it has strug-
gled patiently against police
harassment. This summer county
assistant prosecutor Casper Kast
filed suit against the owner for
selling obscene, lassivious, lewd
and disgusting merchandise and
won a conviction in circuit court.
Adult News has taken the case to
the state court of appeals.
Shortly 'after taking over shop,
manager Crawford was slapped
with a $40 fine for not registering
under an assumed name. It's a de-
tail of business one often forgets,
but law enforcement officials can't
remember too many times they've
hauled someone to court for it.
While I was browsing in the
store, some city employes leaped
from a truck which had pulled
up outside the windows, and be-
gan measuring the Adult News
red and yellow blacklight painted
sign. They wanted to see if it was
big enough to violate the city
sign ordinance. And police wander
in occasionally, just to check up
on business. I asked Crawl ord if
they pay the 50 cent deposit. "You
must be kidding," he said.
What's a nice boy like Dana
Crawford doing in a business like
this? "I'm in it to make money,"
he says. "It's a business like any
other' business, only no other busi-
ness ever gets hassled the way we
get hassled."
That's too bad, because the
mechanics of starting a sex busi-
ness are easy as apple pie. "You"
simply rent a store, put up a plat-
form for the display counter, put
up racks for books, paint the win-
dows and open the store," Craw-
ford confides. All the stock comes
from a warehouse in Duran, Mich-
igan, seat of the Sceen Distrib-
utors pornography empire which
owns Adult News and 50 other
shops like it. Sceen prides itself
on bringing sex to towns like
Saginaw, Flint and Jackson, where
a few years ago you would be hard
pressed to find a copy of Catcher
in the Rye.
SINCE OPENING, 'Ann Arbor's
Adult News has been drifting
along doing- a "satisfactory to
good" business. Most of the clien-
tele says Crawford, are men be-
tween 35 and 55, evenly split be-
tween white collar and blue .ollar
w'orkers, and including a 16t of
transients like salesmen. "White
collar workers usually spend more
and go for more exotic items like
dildos and vibrators," observes
Crawford. "Blue collar workers are
more satisfied with the good old
trade.%
"We get a handful of women
every day. And every now and
then we get a little old lady who
asks me for a Reader's Digest."
Students look around but seldom
buy, says Crawford. "On Friday
and Saturday nights we get a lot
of dates, girls giggle and shriek,
and the guys strut around. I turn
up the stereo real loud."
Crawford doesn't go much for-
the products he sells; he says the
best stuff in the store is the titles
to some of the books. "For anyone
with any amount of intelligence,
the titles are worth the price of
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
UA W
demands: Feasible changes
Dorm security problem
UNIVERSITY DORMITORIES have a
security problem, but there are con-
flicting ideas about where the negligence
lies.
Administrators feel 'the trouble stems
from students failure to be conscious of
security. -Students on the other hand
think that the administration's casual
attitude has led to the lack of security
in the halls.
These conflicting beliefs are composed
partly of rumor and partly of truth, but if
there is to be an effective security system
in the dorms, then the truth must be sep-
arated from rumor.
Last year after a series of raids at South
Quad, a committee of resident directors
drew up a report for revamping the entire
dorm security system. Most of the pro-
posals in the committee's report dealt
with ways to make the security systems
in the dorms more effective. The position
of Night Security Supervisor grew out of
this committee's proposals. Also 14 men
were hired primarily to provide night se-
curity for the dorms. The office of Uni-
versity Housing deemed this force ade-
quate for the protection of the ten resi-
dence halls. These men were hired two
Domino
SEVERAL YEARS ago the State Univer-
sity of California at Berkeley became
the campus center of unrest. The chan-
cellor of the university in those troubled
times was Martin Meyerson.
Two short years ago Meyerson trans-
ferred himself from Berkeley to the State
University of New York at Buffalo. Last
spring that campus closed down for over
a month due to police and student riots
over black demands.
Now Meyerson has relocated himself
again and upped his stature. He is presi-
dent of the University of Pennsylvania.
Until this time that campus has been
relatively quiet.
Has J. Edgar picked up his trail?
-MAYNARD
weeks before the begining-of the fall term
and received only three days of training
before starting on their jobs.
Whether this security force is adequate
is questionable, but the actions of some
students in dormitories are also question-
able.
TAKE BURSLEY Hall for an example.
One of the main problems in Bursley
is the propping open of back doors with
such articles as rocks, sticks and anything
else that will keep the door open. This is
done mainly for the convenience of stu-
dents, (probably so they won't have to
go to the front entrance when coming in
from the parking lot).
While students may enter and leave
the building with less trouble, opening the
back doors may also tempt a thug or
burglar to come inside.
Another favorite student pasttime is
disconnecting the buzzer alarm system in
Bursley. This mechanism was installed to
apprehend anyone illegally passing
through the men's wing to the women's
wing. Students who findq this an incon-
venience turn it off. While this removes
the handicap, it also hampers attempts
to keep unwanted strangers out of dorm
halls. By failing to lock their doors and
challenge suspicious strangers, students
cause security problems for themselves,
However there are some questions that
University Housing must answer. Why
is there only one security man for large
residence halls such as Bursley, Markley
and South Quad? The latter, because of
its size, location and the heavy resident,
non-resident, and non-student traffic, is
a prime security problem.
ETAS THE Housing Office considered in-
sgfl1)no onerating electronic buzzer
cTetPrr in F01 residence halls? The only
system now working is in Bursley. Also,
why has the University waited so long to
ePperiment with programs like the door
Irov cvetmV mirrently onenrtod in Mosher
.Tordi Qn snd the ard key system planned
for Markley? Why is there no security
orotection at such a large complex as
Vera Baits Houses?
PCme q+rifiPq have been tnken toward
.4%.- ..
.s "& " ,v 'a 'l ..".
To the Editor:
MR. CHANEY'S editorial (Sept.
18) is ignorant of working condi-
tions inside auto plants and naive
about the power of the UAW to
influence GM in "progressive" di-
rections.
First, it may be impossible to
make work in auto plants a n y -
thing but boring and monotonous.
Both the rank and file and the
UAW leadership realize this. Given
the inevitable boredom, better
working conditions are achieved
by longer breaks during the shift,
less arbitrary authority for t h e
foremen, elimination of manda-
tory overtime, more holidays, and
the 30 and Out demand.
Most of these 'provide the one
possible improvement: more time
away from the line. As for t h e
"greed" of wage demands, the auto
worker may rationalize his bore-
dom with the amount of money he
makes.
But these people are also con-
sumers. Few see any alternative to
this life style. They need to buy
cars, homes, appliances, food and
clothing for their families and oc-
casionally have the extra burden.
of sending a child or two to col-
lege. Due to inflation all t h e s e
things cost more. A larger wage is
needed for their economic sur-
vival. To call that greed is a cal-
lous and oversimplified answer.
And would any resultant inflation
be due to UAW wage demands or
GM reluctance to reduce its mar-
gin of profit?
SECOND, THE UAW limits its
demands to what is feasible, given
its limited power. Would a UAW
strike for a non-polluting engine
or a safe car be an effective wea-
pon? That type of a strike would
probably bring howls of laugh-
ter from amused GM officials. The
UAW doesn't have that much
power relative to Ford, Chrysler,
and GM. The power to force those
changes lies with the federal gov-
ernment. But for the UAW to
squander its power over issues on
which it has perpherial influence,
as Mr. Chaney suggests, would be
"to not think at all."
-Mark H. Haarz, LSA '70
Sept. 22
Glass recycling
To the Editor:
YOUR SEPT. 18 edition con-
tained a story on the new glass re-
cycling center, and while you not-
ed our successful beginning y o u
failed to mention our location.
People who want to =recycle their
glass and help to make the recyc-
ling center a permanent commun-
ity service should go to 221 Felch.
behind the Ann Arbor Construc-
tion Co., Tuesday through Satur-
day.
-Russell Linden
Enact Ecology Center,;Inc.
Supporting Denton
To the Editor:
I WISH TO enter my support
of Peter Denton in his request
that he be judged by his, peers,
Rather than taking disciplinary
action we should thank him for
having the courage to stand up
and cause the tumult necessary to
effect the difficult changes need-
ed 'in our society.
--Mark M. Green
Asst. Prof. of Chemistry
The Editorial Page of The
Michigan Daily is open to any-
one who wishes to submit
articles. Generally speaking, all
articles should be less than
1,000 words.
0
"I didn't think the hijackers would blow
up those jets either.. .."
- halancuis4 teactijiPs
Newark flash! Baby Hughey goes to jail?
nadine cohodas
IT'S TOO BAD Lincoln Steffens isn't alive to write a
new chapter for his eyeopening "Shame of the
Cities" of 1904. The new section would have to be called
"The Extortion of Newark" starring eight-year mayor
and former U.S. congressman of seven terms, Hugh J.
Addonizio, the'corpulent, balding ruler of the New Jersey
city who was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison,
and fined $25,000 for conspiracy and extortion.
And after revealing the sordid details of the Ad-
donizio case, Steffens would have to acknowledge that
after 66 years, there's really nothing new in big city
corruption or in public reaction to it.
Addonizio, as anyone who briefly studies Steffens' work
will learn, has acted in a fine tradition of municipal
graft. He and three cohorts, former City Director of
Public Works Anthony LaMonte, Joseph Biancone and
Ralph Vicaro (who received a stiffer sentence) were all
convicted of sharing the proceeds of extorted kickbacks
totaling $1 5 million from contractorso n city water
office When I am out of this one, and I shall get out of
this office all there is in it for Samuel H. Ash-
bridge."
The mayor certainly gave it the old college try by'
pursuing activities - admittedly more dastardly than
Addonizio' s- which included the attempted silencing of
a public newspaper through threats and intimidation of
persons involved in its publishing; the importation from
New York of the White Slavery system of prostitution,
the growth of speakeasies and corruption of the local
school systems to help elections.
The last item took the form of "voluntary contribu-
tions" by teachers to The Machine to insure better
salaries and in some cases just to get hired. And, as
Steffens notes, in Philadelphia during this period it be-
came clear that teachers were chosen not on fitness'
but for political reasons.
Ashbridge was luckier than Addonizio, however. For
Steffens says that after his narasitic term amayor. he
not generalizations, but each statement can be abundant-
ly proved by numerous instances."
AND TUESDAY IN TRENTON Judge Barlow declared
in part:
"It is impossible to estimate the impact . . . of these
criminal acts upon the decent citizens of N e w a r k
and indeed of this state, in terms of their frustration,
despair and disillusionment. How can we calculate the
cynicism engendered in our citizens . . . how does one
measure the erosion of - confidence in our system of
government and the diminished respect for our laws, oc-
casioned by those men? These very men who, as govern-
iment officials. inveighed against crime in the streets,
while they pursued their own criminal activities in the
corridors of city hall?"
Furthermore, Barlow contended,'the "enormity" of
Addonizio's guilt could "scarcely be exaggerated" because
"an intricate conspiracy of this magnitude couldnever
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