fl ASr4iepnIit
Eighty-three years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mi. 48104
News Phone: 764-0552
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1974
Supporting rent control
CITIZENS OPPOSED to Rent Control,
a landlord pressure group, has sug-.
gested that Ann Arbor landlords kick in
$5 for every rental unit they manage in
order to defeat the proposed rent control
ordinance.
More than the rent control ordinance
is at stake. By itself the suggestion is a.
frightening example of the way in which
private power and private money, in. the
service of selfish interest, are used to de-
feat the popular will.
Even more frightening, however, is a
calcul&tion of the real financial power
which the landlords have at their dis-
posal, and which they are undoubtedly
marshalling against the rent control or-
dinance.
Multiply the $5 cut by the number,
of rental units in the city and the sum
raised would amount to about $85,000,
an awesome campaign chest in the local.
political arena.
This, in fact, is nothing compared to
the amount of money which the land-
lords are potentially able to raise, espe-
cially if the proposed ordinance passes
April 5 and goes into the courts.
IN WHATEVER WAY the landlords
raise their campaign treasury; it will
be the renters who bear the cost.
Considering the ingenious proposal
emanating from the landlord pressure
group, tenants would do well to follow
another suggestion, this one from the
prime mover behind the rent control or-
dinance the Human Rights Party
(HRP).
HRP has suggested that renters bal-
ance their landlords' contributions with
those of their own, deducting five dol-
lars from their next remittance to their
landlord. The money should be sent to
HRP rent control fund, 516 E. William,
Ann Arbor 48104.
Tenants have been burned by their
landlords-especially the big manage-
ment companies who will lead the anti-
rent control campaign-for long enough.
When laws are passed to protect tenant's
rights, the management companies will
think up clever ways to evade them.
Rents and profits are high enough, as
the plumbing is bad enough and the
deposit hassle enough.
TN A LETTER MADE public by the Hu-
man Rights Party, local realtor Neil
Snook stated that rental control is "in-
tended to bring people who own, oper-
ate or manage income property to their
knees."
He's right.
Thompsc
fiture worlds goofs
By STEPHEN SELBST
HUNTER THOMPSON'S appearance at
Hill Auditorium Tuesday has to rank
as the most visible and blatant mistake of
the Future Worlds lecture series.
Thompson was neither educational nor
entertaining. This is nothing new at the
U. There are many professors who aren't
educational, many mre who fail to enter-
tain. The combination, as Hunter proved
on Tuesday, is deadly boring.
But Hunter Thompson doesn't deserve
total blame. The real cause of a horrible
lecture was that Thompson is not a lectur-
er by profession, he is a journalist. His
style is highly unorthodox, and to expect
" him to deliver a straight talk followed by
an unemotional question period was fool-
ish.
WHAT MORE does he have to say? He
tore all his favorite targets to shreds in
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
'72. Did the crowd expect him to get uip
there and tell the untold chapters? Or, like
Ralph Nader, to expose the real truths
in American political life?
He didn't have anything to say, and he
didn't. He seemed to enjoy the adulation,
and there was plenty of that. A lot of the
crowd seemed attracted to him because he
seems to be such an obvious escapee from
the funny farm.
People who had come to see the man
who wrote Fear and Loathing in Ls Vegas;,
the best book ever written on dangerous
drugs, wanted Thompson to tell them they
were right in filling their bodies with weird
substances. That crowd was right at home
from the start, passing joints, drinking
booze, and engaging in a perverse form of
adolescent hero worship.
THEY YELLED and hooted whenever
Thompson said anything at all. "Pretty ear-
ly in the day to be so fucked up," drew
a big wave of appreciative laughter. Right
from the start, any hope of a serious lec-
ture was doomed when the crowd refused
to settle down.
Instead, a mood of nervous expectancy
prevailed, with people waiting for him to
say something utterly outrageous, stumb-
ling along, hoping for laughs and cheap
thrills.
For his part, Thompson didn't add to
the decorum much. When Ann Arbor's own
Shakin Jake took the stage, Thomns)n just
moved aside and let the crowd have it's
way. He got paid no matter who was on
stage. He flaunted that arrogance when he
told them, "to satisfy contractural obliga-
tions I could read from the cocaine papers
of Sigmund Freud."
C'MON NOW. What kind of crap? This
guy is supposed to be for academic credit.
Can you imagine a future worlds final ques-
tion? Get stoned and describe in ramb-
ling terms Thompson's sum knowledge
of the American political process. 25
points.-
Thespeople who came to see him smply
because he is a big youth type name got
taken for a dollar, but the students of the
course got ultimately defrauded.
The blame for this fraud lies with Future
Worlds. They obviously wanted a big name
to draw people, to go along with Ralph
Nader, William Douglas, Buckminster Ful-
ler, and some of the other big names.
bombs:
Who's
to
blame?
That's fine, and pulling in a big name to
go with a bunch of fairly obscure scientist
types is a necessary concession to the
lure of the almighty dollar.
FUTURE WORLDS is in financial trouble
and they hope to draw a few big crowds.
But Hunter Thompson was the wrong man
to fill the role. Not touching on anything
about the future, or anything else for that
matter, he wasted the time of several
thousand people and disgraced the name
of Future Worlds with one of the worst
performances ever on this campus.
credible bits of wisdom, you've gotta be
prepared for his almost complete and oft-
en boring self-indulgence.
IT HAPPENS THAT we didn't get the
bits of wisdom Tuesday. But neither has
anyone else lately. He doesn't write much
and his last two pieces in Rolling Stone
have been pure mush. Thompson has given
up plans to run for the Senate, and he
says his major pastime and means of sup-
port - an offshoot of his success in han-
dicapping presidential candidates during
the primaries - is betting on pro football.
What this may represent is the begin-
ning of the end of a really fine hustle.
Thompson had a limited appeal. He could
only fulfill fantasies so long. He said as
much in his "speech".
At first I felt sorry for Thompson Tues-
day. They wouldn't take him seriously.
Instead a bunch of lost fools guzzled Wild
Turkey and tried archly to imitate a style
which I suspect even Thompson only takes
vaguely seriously.
BUT THEN PEOPLE started asking ri-
diculous, pretensious questions like "What
do you think of Bill Proxmire?", "of
Scoop Jackson?" and "Do you think Mrs.
Howard Hunt's plane was sabotaged?"
Questions Thompson knew nothing more
about, and perhaps less, than the rest of
us.
After that, I started hating the audi-
ence, and myself, for having gotten sucked
into the hype.
Yea, we got what we deserve. As a good
con man once put it: "If you've got lar-
ceny in your own heart, no matter how'
slick you are, you'll be easy to hustle."
Well my larceny was that I expected a
hero, a God, and the seventies offer noth-
ing but scarred, fallible people.
HUNTER THOMPSON'S an ass, but he
makes no bones about it. He walked away
with $1200 Tuesday for doing nothing less
than all precedent said he would have. The
joke's on me.
Solzhenitsyn's tragic plight
THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT arrested
Alexander Solzhenitsyn last Tuesday
night. Its violent action was hardly un-
predictable. Ever since the seizure of his
latest work, Gulag Archipelago, an ex-
pose of Soviet labor camps the Soviet Un-
ion has stepped up its harassment of.
the Nobel-Prize winner.
In spite of the government's attempts
to coerce Solzhenitsyn into retracting his
scathing Indictments, the author firm-
ly refused to deny the charges or to
leave the country, an alternative emi-
nently desirable to a government deter-
mined to silence one of its most vocal
critics.'
Solzhenitsyn refused to leave Russia
because he is a confirmed Communist
and a sincere patriot whose dedication
to his country has led him to denounce
the wrongs he finds in it. He did not
want to leave the nation he loves, but
the issue is not patriotism alone..
SOLZHENITSYN IS ONE of the few
leaders of the Soviet intelligentsia
still alive and able to voice his opinions.
His presence in the country was a strong
influence, a fact of which the govern-
ment was painfully aware.
TODAY'S STAFF:
NEWS: Prokosh Aswani, Dan Biddle, Tim
Evanoff, Cindy Hill, Cheryl Pilate, Jim
Schuster, Becky Warner
EDITORIAL PAGE: Clifford Brown, Morn-
ie Heyn, Patricia Tepper, Joan Weiss
ARTS PAGE: Ken Fink, Jeff Sorensen
PHOTO TECHNICIAN: Thomas Gottlieb
Now, what Solzhenitsyn most feared
and the government most wanted has
come to pass. He has been exiled from
the Soviet Union for the rest of his life.
His wife and children will be permitted
to join him whenever they wish.
At one time, he simply would have
been liquidated; but in this age of in-
creased Soviet sensitivity to world opin-
ion, the solution was not that simple.
A massive campaign to discredit Solz-
henitsyn and his book completely failed
to shake public belief in him. The gov-
ernment was forced to take stronger
measures to silence him, but actual mur-
der would have made him a popular
martyr and therefore been counterpro-
ductive. Spiritual murder, however, is
far more difficult for the world to see
and thus more effective.
TRUE, THE SOVIET government cannot
silence the writer now that he is in
West Germany, but it can efficiently pre-
vent him from acting as mentor to dissi-
dents within the Soviet Union.
From the standpoint of personal safe-
ty, perhaps exile is preferable to remain-
ing in the country, but in light of Solz-
henitsyn's steadfast refusal to surren-
der his position and his citizenship, the
action is totally deplorable.
Although Soviet oppression is not as
readily apparent as it once was under
previous regimes, it still crushes attempts
at free expression. This may be an "age
of detente", but the world cannot ig-
nore such flagrant violations of the
right to criticize injustice.
audience applauds
By TONY SCHWARTZ
I GOT WHAT I deserved, and so did most
of the people I talked to. I wanted a
hero, or at least an anti-hero, and there
aren't many people around to fit the bill.
I chose Hunter Thompson for a few
reasons:
-He was twisted enough to run around
like a completely self-indulgent, maniac
17-year-old juvenile deliquent, and get away
with it; even, incredibly, to get payed for
it. He filled, vicariously, all my wildest
fantasies.
-He was ruthless to his body, filled it
up with more drugs than I knew existed, or
at least said he did. And then he was
funny and lucid writing about it, in a way
I always wanted to be.
-HE WAS ALSO ruthless and funny in
writing about the biggest villains in the
last few years: politicians. Drugged up,
he parodied their incredible deceit by ob-
scuring his own line between fact and fan-
tasy.
And these are the reasons I had no
right to expect any more than Thompson
gave us. Make no mistake about it: he was
a rin-off. He came here to speak about
"Politics and the Seventies" and instead he
offered to read from "The Cocaine Papers
of SigmundeFreud" and finally gave slur-
red responses to questions through a dys-
functioning microphone.
But why not? We read, in his own words,
how he ripped off Sports Illustrated and
just about everyone in sight while he ran
around in Las Vegas. And so too Rolling
Stone, during the last presidential cam-
paign. What makes a university so sacred?
Thompson is Thompson, and for his in-
point where it will buy two hours of
alternate chaos and boredom.
Perhaps it was too much to expect Hunt-
er Thompson to speak coherently, aud-
ibly or in complete sentences when he
spoke on Tuesday at Hill Auditorium, let
alone to expect a recognizable or organized
topic.
Many in the audience were expecting a
torrential and biting lecture similar to
Thompson's famed written ravings. Those
who were not familiar with Thompson's
gonzo journalism were expecting at least
an adequate lecture for their dollar and
two hours.
LOGICALLY, THOMPSON - who doesn't
write like most writers - should not have
been expected to lecture like most lectur-
ers. Thompson's Future World lecture col-
leagues have been distinguished and erudite
speakers. The audience may have been ex-
pecting a Ralph-Nader-type lecture on con-
sumingdrugs or a Carl-Sagan-like lecture il-
lustrating the outer space of the inner' nihd.
What the audience's tickets bought them
was a view of a red-shirted, besneakered
and dying hero, a man whose life was a
bottle of pills and a bottle of booze and
a ball point pen - with the bottles winning
out. The cripple-tongued, foggy speaker
claimed to be the same man known for
intestinal and fearless outer limits writing.
That claim and Thompson's assumption
that he was qualified to set one sneaker
sole on the Hill Auditorium stage was frauda
ulent.
WHAT WAS perhaps most disillusioning to
those who had come to hear a brash but
potent journalistic leader speak was the
realization, after an hour of schwafling
and Romper Room madness, that Tho mp-
son had nothing to say. Half the people
in the audience could have expounded
on politics with ten times the comprehen-
sion and clarity of Thompson, although only
a few could have elucidated on drugs with
more knowledge or personal expertise than
Thompson. Thompson's speaking ability
may well be more suited to the American
Pharmaceutical Association.
Only a handful of gonzo devotees enthus-
-Astically hooted in obeisance to te g nzo
master. The large majority of faces held
rooked looks or were turning in disust
toward the exits. Thompson's popularity
dwindled during the lecture, reviving brief-
ly whenever he decided to call a questioner
a speed freak or swear. A foul-mouthed boy
scout could have done. as good a job
and probably only charged a dime.
PERHAPS THE nerve connectin. b-
tween Thompson's drug-burned mind and
his mouth have been mescalined out of
existence, or one too many Hell's Angel's
fists crashed into his skull. For whatever
reason, Thompson is bound into a nietal
straight-jacket, unable to verbally cotylete
a thought.
The dream of a bright revolutionary to
lead us through days of unenlightened 84me-
ness has been swallowed in a capsule ond
hypodermically punctured.
Hunter huffs
By BETH NISSEN
A DOLLAR WON'T buy much of a lunch
these days. It has devalued to the
Letters Tohe Dail .Notes of co ncern
U U - mm. mu
0
'4
g I
r
-I l, '/1I
I LLD
"
" t6
To The Daily:
THIS APPEAL BY Miguel En-
riquez, Secretary General of the
Chilean MIR (Movement of the
Revolutionary Left) was recently
smuggled out of Chile.
Enriquez, on whose head there
is a price of 50,000 Escudos, along
with Socialist Party leader secre-
tary, Carlos Altamorano, has ask-
ed for the widest possible distribu-
tion.
I take the responsibility for its
accurateness; please allow MIR
and the working people of Chile
to express themselves in your
newspaper.
-Maris Bertoletti
Comrades,
FASCISM HAS imposed itself in
Chile, with the suport of U.S. im-
perialism and it's sub-imperialism
in Brazil. All democratic freedoms
have been abolished.
The army has intervened mili-
tarily in the universities. Parlia-
ment has been closed down.
The worker's organizations have
been dissolved. Thousands of work-
ers have been sacked. A real sys-
tem of forced labor exists today.
Wages have been frozen. Prices
shoot upwards. The administrators
named by the government to run
the factories are the former own-
ers, the former directors.
A state of seige exists through-
out the country. The whole popula-
tion is subject to curfew and can be
hauled before a military tribunal
as in time of war.
The number of summary execu-
tions is increasing, and a virtual
program is being carried o u t
against foreigners. A regime which
draws it inspiration from the Nazi
Germany rules Chile today.
IT WAS NEITHER socialism,
nor the proletariat revolution, nor
the workers which failed in Chile.
In Chile what collapsed so trag-
tionaries are still powerful. The
struggle wil be long and hard. But
we are sure of winning.
From the struggle for the re-
storation of democratic freedoms,
from the defense of the standard
of living of the masses, the maws
movement will reorganize itself,
the popular resistance to the dicta-
torship will grow in the country
and in the towns will develop and
grow.
This will lead to the overthrow
of the dictatorship, the restoration
of the freedoms, and will open the
way for a powerful revolutionary
process involving the workers and
the peasants, which will culminate
in the prolertarian and socialist
revolution.
THE STRUGGLE of the Chile!4n
working class and people agaist
the fascist military dictatorship is
an integral part of the struggle of
the peoples of the world against
imperialism. The international sol-
idarity of the socialist countries,
of the democratic and the revolu-
tionary countries and sectors has
been and will continue to be funda-
mental.
I do not want to end without pay-
ing tribute to Salvator Allende, who
gave his life in defense of his be-
liefs, the workers, and to the mili-
tants of all the organizations of the
left, and in particular to our own
militants who are dead, dying, or
imprisoned in the fight against ie
facist military dictatorship.
-Miguel Enriquez
October, 1973
Chile
To The Daily:
BAUTISTA VON SCHOWEN, un-
dersecretary-general of the Move-
ment of the Revolutionary L e f t
(MIR) was arrested and condemn-
ed to death in Chile December -14.
According to the reports, he was
accused of "acts of resistance "
Nothing else was known by Jan.
Guarnicion de Santiago, Grl. Ai el-
lano, Santiago, Chile; and to En-
rique Urrutia, Presidente de la
Corte Suprema, Plaza Montt-Virus
Santiago, Chile.
-The Chile Solidarity
Committee
New York, Jan. 31, 1974
the herd of students pasing in and
out of the multiversity every four
years, and gather perceptions
about the education we receive
here. We are surveyed, counted,
and computed. The tabulated re-
sults can be found in office files
and wastebaskets or the "Mo-
dern Living" section of Time. But
how many of us can say that we
have been approached as human
beings and asked how we feel
about the courses offered us or the
way we are taught?
It would have to be a sca:'e
handful. Yet somehow it ha. oc-
curred to the history department
that our perceptions, as individ-
uals, and as a group should count
when making decisions concerning
teaching and curriculum.
Hopefully, a lot of people, espic-
ially those interested in history.
will recover from the sho sk in time
to be present at the fortrzm, billed
as "the Greatest Forum on Earth",
or, for the less pre enti-)ts, 'Teach-
ing History: What to Save? What
to Change?" being held in 182'
Physics and Astronomy Building,
Friday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. The
people in a position to act -- to
change, to eradicate problems and
build exciting programs, will be
there to listen and to respond.
FRESHPEOPLE and soromores
are particularly encouraged tt,
come and express th:r views,
since one of the major topics of
discussion will be lower level
courses. What are people who take
them looking for? What do they
feel they are getting? What areas
and approaches might be most
interesting and effective? 0); h e r
questions which should ba raised
concern the role of the teaching fel-
low and the grader and the differ-
ence between graduate and under-
graduate education.,
If we want to help detrniine our
education, instead of bitz i og use-
To Tht DAilY:
To The Daily:
THE IRRESPONSIBLE behavior
of SGC members: Hoffman, Hud-
ler and Taylor "Fight nearly
erupts"; 218/74) cannot go un-
criticized. In full awareness, that
the movement to organize farm
workers is a struggle against the
racial and social oppression of the
entire Chicano community, these
representatives chose to childishly
eat non-union lettuce during a re-
quest by the UFW suport commit-
tee for financial assistance.
Whenever the rights of a parti-
cular minority are threatened,
everyone in the society suffers. Mr.
Hoffman should be especially
aware of this. There is no place
for racism in the academic com-
munity, let alone in the student
government.
If Messrs. Hoffman, Hudler and
Taylor are allowed to remain in
office this can only imply consent
for their actions and beliefs, on the
WHAT DOES BOB Dylao's con-
cert tOur mean? Everything has
its symbolic as well as literAl
meaning. The concart Was a bit-
ter-sweet experience.
But what is Dylan sayin'A? I'a.
has enough money to live, I tink,
from his previous work, and to
play to peuple to his heatt's con-
tent. Instead of doing that, he hooks
up with a monster commercial tour
which will pull in millions. For
what? So lots of people will get
to see him? He says himself that
money doesn't talk, it screams.
Where does he go fromn here with
his million dollars? What does he
have to say to us now? He's a rich
man telling us to stay "forever
young."
TO ME IT was like he was say-
ing good-bye. He could have con-
tinued to be a part of ur ives,.
like he was to mine for sd iany
years in the sixties, when he Sang
of everything I Was feeling and
experiencing, and made mi feel in
touch with the world when ever*'-
thing was crazy, dbumaized, and
brutal.
He gave us a nignt of high exite-
ment, I loved it, and r pid $30
for my chance to see him. I'd ned'-
er actually seen him perform be-
fore and really wanted to. But now
he's gone, I wonder what there is
to follow. If he wax a synbol &,
self-exploration, his expoloitatio of
his name and his fame, or his
failure to prevent chers, like Gra-
ham and the businessmen from x.
ploiting his talent for profit, make
me wonder where he is going or
gone.
I CAN'T follo~q' him If there-s
music to play and things to say,
you've got to just be contesit wit;
saying it. The it ,ge of Dylan,
now the rich mtn, gain3 his way
Dylan
I ~1r bi
' Rt MILK