t tga sug Eighty-three years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Whodunit? (LIKcE SISY'PHUS, DOoMED FOREVER TxPush4 A. FLOCK UP A STEEP H ILL.. - BEFORE IT REA4HNES 1THE -MP, !T PLUNGES BACK Tb fTHE 01YOM., 50 THTnIS &.~WEAL *AWC7 T"ASK NEV8 ENDSc.) 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mi. 48]04 News Phone: 764-0552 FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 1974 Reform proposal too weak WIHAT THIS TOWN needs is a tough campaign spending law. The partic- ular ordinance proposed by Mayor James Stephenson does not fit the prescription, however. The ordinance, which passed the first of two necessary votes on Monday, Jan. 8, would regulate campaign financing in city elections by limiting individual con- tributions to $100, prohibiting contribu- tions to candidates from labor and busi- ness organizations, and require detailed public campaign finance statements to be filed by all candidates. The purpose of any campaign spend- ing law is, of course, to reduce the ability of large, well-organized and wealthy in- terests to effectively buy election vic- tories for their favorite candidates. It is to that Stephenson's proposal should be designed and is, to a partial extent. UNFORTUNATELY, any c a m p a i g n spending ordinance will have loop- holes, such as the use of multiple dona- tions that merely replace one large do- nation, as well as some unforseen at the time of passage. Therefore, the most ef- fective method, other than public cam- paign funding, to control the abuse of campaign financing is to place a ceil- ing on the total amount that can be spent on a given campaign. Not only would this reduce the possibility of exploiting various loopholes in other sections of the ordinance but would increase the ability of the average candidate to compete against the wealthy candidate as well. Hopefully the council committee ap- pointed to study the ordinance will in- clude the spending ceiling in the pro- posal they submit to Council for approv- al next Monday. If the final version of the ordinance includes the campaign spending ceil- ing, the ordinance should be approved in the interest of fair elections in this city. IF HOWEVER, the ceiling is not includ- ed, the ordinance should be defeat- ed, for as council member Jerry DeGrieck (HRP-First Ward) put it, "Any election control law that doesn't have such a provision is a sham." s / !/ 1 1 t tR t ,. 3 JJ7 i 7 %}f J r ! : 4 "A f i t ' , t. y , t S 4 By GARY THOMAS FIRST THE TAPES didn't exist. Then they did exist but we are in the midst of a tapes shoetage. Then they were found but two of the key recordings had disappear- ed. Then the tapes were found to have a gap in them, accidentafly caused by gymnast Rose M a r y Woods in the White House conit tionist competition. But, lo and behold, now we find it was gym- nastics that erased the tapes, but not the kind we thought. Right. I am of the firm belief that the above script could not have been written by Walt Disney on LSD. But it has happened, and Nix- on's got the Key Bisca iie blues again. A highly-placed rumor has it that Nixon will fly to Chia to ask for political asylum. There will be a number of ways the White House will try to explain away certain gaps, bota in the tapes and in the memories of the White House staff. One has al- ready been proposed: that the gaps were caused by the comet Kohoutek. I HAVE SEVERAL other theor'- ies I would like to propose: -The electromagnets i-i Nixon's slot car set erased the tapes as he was playing Le Mans w i t h Howard Hughes and Bebe Rebozo (winner gets $100,000.) -The Secret Service erased the tapes with a bomb deta..tor while looking for a bomb. -The New York Times did it. -The Washington Post did It. (Woodward and Bernstein, w h e r e are you?) -Milhous accidently erased the tapes when dictating a seec rinto the machine as part of Operation Candor. -The recorders were turned off during the energy crisis -They were short-circuited by Johnny Cash's electric guitar. -Nixon recorded the sound track from "Patton" on them. -The Democrats did it. -The recorder crossed w i r e s with the White House Christmas tree lights. -The Arabs did it. ALL THESE are just possibili- ties, of course, and I am just dying to hear what the Minister of Propaganda himself, Ronald Zieg- ler says. (The guy's a former guide at Disneyland, so it's gotta be a winner.) Nixxon (we're changing o u r name but not our strines) h a s taken us through Credibility Gap so many times that I, for one, am getting tired of seeing this movie. How many more times are we go- ing to hear "Ring-Around the-Rosy Rag" as performed by the White House Kazoo Korus befbre some- thing is done? This should be the. end of the tapes thing, Watergate, and var- ious and sundry related episodes. Now. Finis. Curtain down and play over. It's time for C-igress to cut the Yo-Yo's string and get rid of him. After all, he 'tas absolute- ly no recycle value. WE ARE the energy crisis. Not the Arabs, or the oil companies, but us. We don't have the energy to issue the call to our Congress- persons to tell them that we are too old and grown up to believe in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the Tapes Fairy. "The fault, dear Briitus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings." Gary Thomas is a reporter for Unifed Press International. Kent State revisited A FEDERAL GRAND jury in'Cleveland this week continues hearings about the Kent State University shootings where four students were killed and nine others wounded by gunfire from Na- tional Guard troops on May 4, 1970. The original state grand jury and a Justice Department probe headed by then-Attorney General John Mitchell ex- onerated the guardsmen and indictied 25 students, including some of those wound- ed, for such crimes as incitement to riot. The original indictments and investi- gations were suspect for many reasons, n6t the least of which was the specious reasoning necessary to condemn the un- Sports Staff DAN BORUS. Sports Editor FRANK LONGO Managing Sports Editor armed dead and injured for "provoking" the heavily - fortified guardsmen into killing and maiming them. It would be some small comfort tb the victims of the gunfire, and to those who shared their concern about American involvement in the Indochina war, to be vindicated by an unrigged grand jury and investigation. BUT VINDICATION FOR those directly involved almost four years after the fact will not alter the enormous impact that Kent State - the killings and the subsequent condemnation of the dem- onstrators - had on American public life. What the, Kent State murders have meant to American young people was that you could get shot for standing around and being against the war - or any- thing else that was sanctioned by the powers that be. Young people - especially white young people - received, for the first time in a significant way, the kind of treatment formerly used to discouraged "uppity" blacks, Vietnamese, Congolese, civil rights workers, mine strikers, and other "mal- contents." The gravest result of the Kent murders, and the subsequent official obfuscation created by advocates of "winning" in Vietnam, was the stifling of an entire generation of dissent and the end of an era of hopeful activism. ALTHOUGH NO SINGLE grand jury can alter the intended and successful si- lencing of dissent that the Kent State massacre symbolizes, at least they are in a position to produce a complete study of the incident and to present relevant facts to the public. We trust that those facts will exoner- ate the victims of the shooting. Letters To The Daily: EDITOR CHRIS PARKS has a fairly reasonable analysis of this year's city council campaign in your Friday issue, but I have to dispute several of his conctusbons. First of all, he completely ig- nores the effect of the rent-control proposition on the various council races. The fantastic response to HRP's rent-control petition drive last month clearly indicates a solid trend toward support of radical action issues by a growing seg- ment of Ann Arbor's eleztorate. Only the HRP candidates can fully relate to such issues, and as a result they'll receive increase pro- portions of the vote. Second, Chris fails to include voter turnout as a factor in this year's election. It's already appar- ent that the marijuana and rent- control issues are going to being out a much higher number of vot- es this year, especially in the First and Second Wards. Again, HRP candidates will benefit because of their unequivocal support for the two ballot propositions. Third, the article doesnt mention the strong influence of retiring HRP council members Wechsler and DeGrieck. Their peaormance over the past two years has been greatly admired. They've provided the most consistent representatioil their wards ever had, and the vo:- ers will be looking for a con- tinuation of that tradition. In my opinion, the absence of a Republican in the Second Ward contest is going to hurt bhx &o the capitalist parties. Not miry Re- publicans are going to bother t.) vote in the Second Ward, and their party will lose strengh in the pro- portional representation formula, for the new Rent Control Board. The Democrats will lose votes to HRP from people who were wor Reaction to election analysis ried about vote splitting las' year, but now have a clear choice on is- sues. Again, HRP gains, not only in the Second Ward but also city- wide. (This part could change if a Republican candidate gets .}O write-in votes in the primary!) Chris said that only my presence as an HRP candidate last year in the Fourth Ward caused the Democrat to lose. I disagree - - the real reason was the failure of the Democrat to support rent con- trol, community control of police, gay rights, legalization of drugs, and anti-strikebreaking laws that 1235 voters believed in. Democrats will continue to lose the Fourth Ward because they can't gain sup- port from all the people there who believe in radical politic A princi- ples' more strongly than liberal pel- itician's careers. Finally, Chris is wrong in sav- ing there is strong HRP sentiment for a low-profile "educational" campaign in the Fourth. We spec- ifically voted against that labeL All our campaigns are educational. How can it be low-profile when HRP is the only party working city wide to pass the rent-control amendment with votes from every ward? I agree with Chris that the First and Second Ward votes will be close, but I expect that rent con- trol, increased turnout, and sup- port for incumbents will b.: enough to tip the balance to HRP in at least one ward. As for the Third, Fourth and Fifth, we'd better get used to GOP victories there until the Democrats get wise and sup- port HRP initiatives toward pre- ferential balloting or proportional representation. -Phil Carroll Jan. 11 To The Daily: READING ABOUT the April election in the Jan. 11 Daily, I was surprised at your inept de- scription of Kathy Kazachenko, candidate for Councilwoman in the- Second Ward. Calling her an un- known quality, you didn t mention Kathy's extensive political involve- ment in HRP, women's politics and GAWK - Gay Awareness Women's Kollective. Within HRP Kathy has served on the steering committee as well as having been co-chair of the fall 1972 statewide campaign of Bar- bara Halpert. She also organized a petition drive to continue IUniver- sity support of the UFW lettuce boycott this fall. Kathy is currently vice chair per- son of the Washtenaw County Ad- visorv Committee on the Status of Women and is helping organie an anti-imperialist, rerotutionary feminist group FIST - Feminists in Struggle Together. All told, I'd say Kathy has had a tremendous amount of experience, organizing and input in Ann Arbor community politics. Seeing that Kathy is gay, I had to laugh at your description of the Second Ward affair as a "queer case indeed." We know Kathy would stand proudly by this state- ment though. Her strong radical lesbian feminist politics are exact- ly the sort needed to assure City Council that HRP and radical poli- tics are indeed still alive in Ann Arbor and fighting for change. As for Kathy being a "no charisma kid" I think that really depends on who you are and what you're looking for. -Megan Irwin Jan. 14 morals To The Daily:. AS A CONCERNED citizen and a charter member of the Foundation for Sanctimonious Self-Denial, I must applaud University Housing Director John Feldkamp's recent pronouncements on the Cite': Hu- man Rights Ordinance. (Daily, Jan. 15). As Jovial John so astutely points out, this so-called "ordinance" "is presently worded to allow cohabi- tation by unmarried tenants of the opposite sex" (my emphasis). Tak- ing the bull by the horns, the con- genial housing czar realizes that it is within his "duties" to "seek public policy which discourages this rather harmful situation" by "encouraging (the City Attorney and the Mayor) to rewrite' the of- fending "ordinance." Although I would be the last to call the erstwhile Hausfeuhrer s credentials into question (cf. his positions on sophomore women'; hours and dorm visitation privileg- es a few years back), I wonder if he realizes that he is putting him- self in the dangerous position of apearing to be "soft" on self-styl- ed "gay people". For, under his proposed revision of the distasteful documen+, o n 1 y unmarried tenants of the opposite sex would be in for well-deserved stiff fines and reprimands, leaving the door wide open (as it were, for unmarried tenants of the SAIE sex to cohabit or anything else! Therefore I respectfully suggest that Smilin' John take the next important step in his fight against sexual license and join the FSS-D in the battle to make it a felony for anybody in our fair city to cohabit with anybody else. Under our proposed Human De- cency Ordinance, any two unmar- ried people with keys to I he sam, apartment will be humanely re-edu- cated through enrollment in the Federally-funded Mandatory Moral Enrichment Program until, in the opinion of responsible University and City authorities, they become able to withstand the temptations of the flesh and/or become senile. So how about it, Director Feld- kamp? You've made the first thrust in the right direction - now (par- don the expression), go all the way -John Gray Literary Editor of The Daily, '69-'70 Jan. 16 sensationalism To The Daily: I STRONGLY object to the re- cent headline in the Daily (Jan. 10) in which you referred to Detroit as "Murder City, U.S.A.". You have apparently resorted to the sensationalism of the Detroit news- papers. Such headlines do nothing but create further paranoia. If you checked the statistics for other cities, you would have not- iced that Detroit neither leads in absolute number of murders (New York and Chicago have far more), nor inthe per capita murder rate (Atlanta and several other cities have higher rates). There is no denying that there are many problems in Detroit, and the rapidly increasing murder rate is just one of them. However, headlines such as this do nothing to alleviate the problem and I feel are unjustified. Detroit h a s eno!'gh troubles, without thos press sensationalism. Stick to the facts. -Steve Zecker '74 Jan. 12 BOB McGINN....... ... . ... Executive Sports CHUCK BLOOM ..............Associate Sports JOEL GREER................Associate Sports RICH STUCK ............. Contributing Sports BOB HEUER..............Contributing Sports Business Staff f3ILL BLACKFORD Business Manager Edt or Editor Editor Editor Editor RAY CATALINO.................Operations Manager SHERRY CASTLE ...............Advertising Manager SANDY FIENBERG. . .............. Finance Manager DAVE BURLESON ......... ..........Sales Manager DEPT. MGRS.: Steve LeMire, Jane Dunning. Paula Schwach TODAY'S STAFF: News: Bill Heenan, Mary Long, Gene Rob- inson, Judy Ruskin, Jim Schuster, Rolfe Tessem Editorial Page: Marnie Heyn, Eric Schoch Arts Page: Diane Levick, Mara Shapiro Photo Technician: Ken Fink Peter Arnott pulls strings at E. Quad Aud. By BETH NISSEN Eight colorfully dressed figures hung limp Amidst a forest of strings. Lifeless for the moment, they awaited their creator and manipulator, well-known British puppeteer, Peter Arnott. Currently a professor of drama at Tufts University, Arnott brought his marionettes to life - albeit an unusual one - last night as he presented Agememnon in the Res- idential College Aud. "In English-speaking countries, the marionette threatre has been relegated to children's theatre and party entertainment," says Arnott. "But using the marionette theatre to perform the classic Greek plays allows people to see some of the ancient plays for the first time as they were meant to be seen." Arnott, who does the staging, moves the marionettes, and speaks all the parts, explains, "I am the whole company. I can bring some of the more difficult plays to the stage at a fraction of the cost of using an entire company." In fact, the entire show packs and travels neatly in two cases. Arnott has been travelling with his high-strung company in the U.S. and Crnada for 15 years. Because of the size of the thea- tre, explains Arnott, Greek drama- tists couldn't rely on facial ex- pression or "small intimate pieces of business." "So everything goes into the words," he says. And the only sound equipment Arnott uses for his marionette th;a- tre is his own voice box. He alter- nately shouts, bemoans, cries in anguish and quips for his charact- ers while deftly tugging strings and walking his figures across t h e stage. "Working by myself is an asset," laughs Arnott. "I can change the puppets' movements and not have to worry about throwing anyone else's timing off. I can also become sensitive to the temper of an individual audience and modiUy the lines I stress to fit the audience." The marionettes themselves have grotesquely exaggerated expres- sions on their sculpted faces, muph like the Greek masks of antiquity. Their costumes are simple a n d loose, but establish the charac'er's identity. Yet, notes Arnott, Greek and- iences "went to see a specimi. play, not a favorite actor in a role in that play. The personality of the individual actor was not imporzart. A thin blue light penetrates the black theatre and plays on t h e stage, throwing the shadows of Arnott's puppet chorus on t h e auditorium wall. The three con- spiratorial elders in the chorus move in synchronization, and em- phasized their lines with believable gestures and movements. Arnott stands over the theatre,, his bands visible above the stage. "My theatre is similar to the anese," he says. "I'm not cealed, but I do wear blazK blend into the background.' Jap- con- and As well as being the director, puppeteer and technician, Arnctt has also sculpted the marionett's heads and designed the cotumes himself. The Greek and French plays in his repertoire are his own translations. He will present, for instance, Eniripedes' Cyclops tonight a n d Marlowes Dr. Faustus tomorrow night. Arnott seems much like a Living Zeus, standing over the little peo- ple that dangle below through movements and actions controlled by an unseen power. Said one theatre-goer, "Well, we've come a;long way since Punch and Judy." ==Y ...... ... ..........