FEATURES
SECTION
SEE INSIDE
SirF A6
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FEATURES
SECTION
SEE INSIDE
Section Two-Features Ann Arbor, Michigan-Friday, September 5, 1975 Pages Thirteen to Tv
wenty-Four
Laro:
GOP'S
rising
star
By BILL TURQUE
At first glance, David Laro,
the University's newest Regent,
fits with consummate ease into
the classic American mold ofl
the up and coming young man.
Son of a Jewish immigrant
from Poland who fled Hitler's
Europe, partner in a prestigious
Flint law firm, and a solid
family man, Laro would appear
to be every mother's son - a
credit to the community. At 33,
he looks less than a decade re-
moved from his picture in the
1964 Michiganensian.
-> BUT BEYOND the clean-cut,
Junior Achievement veener
lurks a sharp, politically street-
wise young turk who has played1
the patronage game and has
made it work for him.7
Laro was appointed to thet
Board by Governor William
Milliken on June 3, replacing
Regent Lawrence Lindemer,
who was named by the Gover-
nor in May to fill a vacancy
on the state Supreme Court.
Not surprisingly, this cor-
porate tax lawyer has describ-
ed himself as a "Milliken Re-
publican," and possesses aI
lengthy list of accomplish-
ments within the state GOP.
He headed up Governor Milli-
ken's re-election efforts int
Genesee County both in 19701
and 1974, and served in theI
same capacity for Richard
Okay, politics play a part in
every appointment, but I like to
think I'm modest. I didn't get the
appointment because hey, I'm
David Laro, and I'm a g C7reat guy
and I deserve to be on the Board
of Regents.'
Laro
Nixon in 1972. Laro has also
served on the state Republican{
leadership committee, and was
once a congressional district<
chairman.
Laro is understandably sensi-r
tive to charges of blatant parti-
sanship surrounding his appoint-
ment.
"YES, I know, people will say}
that Milliken paid off a po-
litical debt," he acknowledged,
rather abruptly, as if he had
heard the question several doz-
en times before.]
"Okay, politics play a part
in every appointment, but I like
to think I'm modest. I didn'ti
get the appointment because
hey, I'm David Laro, and I'm;
a great guy and I deserve to1
be on the Board of Regents."
Indeed, Laro did not becomel
a member of the Board because
he was a great guy. His selec-
tion culminated a month long
search for Lindemer's succes-]
sor, involving more than SO
candidates.
"I REMEMBER talking with
Larry Lindemer after he re-
signed from the Regents," Laro
recalled, pondering a Coke at
a local bar. "He described the
job to me, the duties and ev-
eryything, but the one thing he
emphasized is that you really
have to have a fondness for the
University . . . a real fond-
ness."
Laro's fondness became more
than evident as he reflected on
his years as a member of the
class of '64. Checking into South
Quad in the fall of 1960 after
graduating from Flint Central
High, he found dorm life pleas-
ant enough, but lacking in sev-
eral respects.
"I came to school a few years
too early," he said wistfully,
regretting that the Quad was
still an all male hall during his
stint there.
"THE FOOD wasn't so great,
and you couldn't bring girls up
to your room," he said. But the
quad's visitation restrictions
didn't seem to put a damper on
his social life at the University.
"I had a good time," he ad-
mitted, breaking out into a
grin.
LARO rushed Zeta Beta Tau
after his freshman year. By
the time he was a senior, he
was running the place. He said
he did his best to eliminate the
traditional hazing and "ra-ra
stuff" that then marked Greek
life on. campus. He was dis-
apppointed at the frat's demise
in 1967, but felt the reasons
were clear enough.
"I think it could be attribut-
ed to a maturation in student
values. With the advent of the
war, there was not as much
of the joie de vivre attitude."
Laro's years at the Univer-
sity were the dawn of the ac-
tivist movement, with Ameri-'
can youth stirring from the
somnabulent years of Eisen-
hower and the cold war. He
said he felt the first rumblings
of discontent.
"THERE were no demonstra-
tions, but there was the begin-
See LARO, Page 18 E
No blues fe stthis year;
future of show in doubt'
By TIM SCHICK
It drew the big names in blues and jazz-
Count Basie, Hound Dog Taylor, Ray Charles.
It drew musical oddities such as Sun Ra or
Detroit's own One-String Sam. But most of all
it drew people, 20,000 to 30,000 a night.
But the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival,
which ushered in the school year since 1972,
"ias gone the way of the Edsel and other famous
:inancial bombs.
THE THREE-DAY fest won't happen this year.
- either here or in exile.
Concert promoters, Rainbow Multi-Media, say
the festival idea remains in limbo and there
are no definite plans to revive it.
Last year, after a Republican-dominated City
Council refused to authorize a concert site with-
in the city, promoters took the event to Windsor,
Canada and ended up $130,000 in the red.
ORGANIZERS blame the death of the critical-
ly acclaimed festival on the University, city
government, and particularly former Mayor
James Stephenson.
Arguing that the festival drew "undesirables"
to the city, Stephenson and his council cohorts
banned the blues and jazz from Ann Arbor last
summer.
After some hasty p.r. work, the concert re-
emerged billed as the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz
Festival in Exile at the St. Clair Community
College amphitheatre in Windsor.
BUT A stiff crackdown by the border patrol
and a "police state" atmosphere at the concert
site scared off most of the potential audience,
according to David Fenton, one of the promot-
ers.
"If it was in Ann Arbor last year, the Blues
and Jazz Festival would have broken even,"
he said.
Another promoter, Peter Andrews, added that
few Ann Arbor city officials fully appreciated
the significance of the event.
See TOO, Page 18
Doily Photo by STEVE KAGAN
Pedal pusher
Pedal pushing patrolman Walter Willard talks with the arcade magazine salesman while
cruising the city on a three speed bike. The bike, recently donated to the city by a local
business has been credited with bringing the police and citizens closer together. Willard,
however says he must carry a chain since sev eral city residents have indicated an interest
in owning the bike themselves.
FORMER RADICAL
Cleaver: New career in
fashion
I
PARIS (Reuter) - Eldridge Cleaver, once one
of America's most militant black leaders but now
an all-but-forgotten exile, has turned his revolu-
tionary zeal to male trousers and come up with the J
cod piece, 1975 style.
Cleaver, the former Black Panther leader, writer
and ex-convict who jumped parole in California sev-
en years ago and went into exile, is launching his
patented "Cleavers" - as the pants are called -
from a garret apartment in the Paris Latin quarter.
"I WANT to solve the problem of the fig leaf men-
tality," the 39-year-old former revolutionary said in
an interview.
"Clothing is an extension of the fig leaf. It puws
man's sex inside his body. My pants put sex back
where it should be."
Cleavers, in short, show off more or less every-
thing the wearer has to offer, while still keeping
him covered.
"THESE PANTS will walk across the continental
United States from New York to San Francisco,"
said their inventor, who looked smart in his own
pair.
"These pants will be everywhere from Europe to
Ethnic fest brin
fun and frolic to c
For the third consecutive year, downtown Ann Ar
be transformed into showcase of ethnic foods, folk danc
international costumes as the Ethnic Festival swall
Main St.
Bringing together exhibits from more than 20 ethnic
the festival gets under way today at 11 a-m. and runs
tomorrow at 11 p.m.
TO HANDLE the expected crowds and accommod
booths chock full of culinary delicacies, jewelry, an
artifacts, Main St. will be blocked from Huron to Will
Nearly all the participants in the ethnic fair con
the Ann Arbor area, but have preserved the traditions
ancestoral lands.
Among those who will be doing their thing during I
two days are representatives of the Arab-American O
tion whose booth will feature native foods such as bakl
falafel. Also on the main stage will be a demonstration
exciting Arabic Baladi Dance.
Japan," he said.
A leading figure in the Black Panthers movement
in the 1960s, Cleaver was in fact on the scene only
from December 1966, when he was paroled after
serving nine years of a 14-year term for assault with
intent to kill, to November 1968 when he fled to Cuba
and eventually to Algeria.
THERE HE spent several stormy years before be-
ing granted political asylum in France.
During his exile, Cleaver, the author of the best-
selling "Soul on Ice," quit the Black Panthers amid
cries of renegade and traitor. But he says that the
movement was "born with California Governor Ron-
ald Reagan and died with Reagan.
"Now that Nixon and his men are out and things
are moving in the right direction in the United
States, I am satisfied and I do not see any need
for continued agitation," he said.
Cleaver, who expects to return to the United States
for the Bicentennial next year, said, "I feel now !t
will be possible for me to have a quiet day in court
and have my case resolved."
HE FLED from charges stemming from a shoot-
ing incident in Oakland, California.
In France, he has spent much time thinking about
rreasa
the design of his new pants.
"The whole thing is a kind of an offshoot of a
book I am writing," he said. "In my first book I
wrote on the relationship existing between men and
women in the American society, and in my second
book I describe how people look. A lot has to do
with the philosophy and ideology that go into our
clothing . . . How owr clothes are cut and which
narts are emuhasized or de-amphasihed, concealed
or exposed.'
CLEAVER said he saw clothing as an extension
of the fig leaf with pants becoming a second skin.
"This was the creative moment in the whole affair.
"When I saw in my mind the image of a man
standing with his sex inside his skin, his second skin,
to me the remedy seemed obvious - to take the
sex out of the body and put it where it normally
really is. That meant an alteration in the structure
of the pants."
Cleaver said the idea came to him in Cannes three
months ago when he was working on his second
book. "Controversy is bound to erupt over my
pants," he said. "You have a repeat of the phe-
nomenon that you had when women started wearing
brassieres or when the mini-skirt came along or the
bikini."
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