4 Page 4-Wednesday, April 2, 1980-The Michigan Daily The Hash Bash mass: Why are they here? Stan Kachusky, a 14-year-old high school student from Romulus, took a long drag from a joint someone had handed him. He retained the smoke until his face began to blush, then exhaled thie stale air. "Man, this is the beginning of a revolution," he said, as he re-tied the leather lace around his forehead. "I don't want to miss it, you know?" STAN GRABBED a flourgscent-orange frisbee, spun around, and whipped it into the cold, damp, April air. The frisbee immediately turned vertically and dived into the soft, mud- dy ground. It wobbled around for a moment, then rested upside down. Stan is not here to tour the Natural Science museum. He is not here because of older siblings at the University. Stan is not here to eat at Brown Jug. ~C Y "I'm here to get high, man," he explained. "Yeah." Stan chased a frisbee with out-reached arms, and missed it by an embarrassing margin. He then tripped over his frayed jean bottoms, already caked with mud, and slammed into an eight-foot high birch tree. STAN WIPED some mud from his eye. "The HIash Bash," he said groggily, "Man, it's the greatest thing. Can you dig it?" Stan was one of just seve-al hundred people to show up at the Ninth Annual Hash Bash yesterday. Another participant was Naomi Lailot, a bleached-blonde 17-year-old from Garden City. Why was she here? "What else is there to do?" she asked. "It's like, the whole school scene is screwed. By Nick Katsarelas School's bullshit, anyway." Naomi is missing two front teeth. They were knocked out in a fight with her best friend over confusion as to who was supposed to stand in line for Kiss tickets. She is a little overweight, and her paunch hung over the quart of Colt 45 she cradled between her thighs. "MY BOYFRIEND Bart, man, he wants to hassle the cops," she boasted. I Bart sat next to her, his eyes staring blankly ahead. He rocked slowly while mumbling "It's- my-party-and-I'll-cry-if-I-want-to." Bart is 29-years old, and is an unemployed gas station attendant. "Bart and me," said Naomi, caressing the Harley-Davidson insignia on the back of Bart's Levi jacket, "We're gonna get married as soon as I get pregnant."' The Hash Bash was conceived nine years ago by student activists, and was attended mostly by University students. But in the past several years, the only people who have participated have been high school students and non- University people. Who are these people, and how can they stand wearing wet jeans all day? "These kids are in an abnormally-long, rather extended period of puberty," explained Dr. Garret Piajung, a professor of child psychology at the University. "They'll stay this way for God knows how long." DR. PIAJUNG administered name recognition tests to a group of 60 bashers from last year's festivities. Thirteen per cent recognized the name of Pope John II, 34 per cent knew the name of President Carter, while 99 per cent recognized the name of Ted Nugent, although some thought he was the pope. The typical bashers have long hair, head bands, Levi bell-bottom jeans, Levi-vests, and Levi jackets. The names or pictures of rock stars grace their black or red T-shirts, from Led Zeppelin and Blondie to Pink Floyd and The Who. Their bell bottoms drag the ,round, and water slowly creeps up the calf of their jeans. No alligator shirts. No crew-cut sweaters. No topsiders. Noadesigner jeans. The Diag became slightly more congested as the bashers rolled in during the day. University students waded through the small crowd, staring at the long-haired, Levi-clad youngsters like motorists gawking at accident scenes. "ALL THESE LITTLE druggies running around make me sick," complained Allen Greenblue, a graduate -student in the Business Schoool. "The cops should nuke them." "I don't really care about them," stated Gina Jin, an LSA sophomore. "Really, I don't care, as long as they don't use our bathrooms." They are called bashers. Druggies. Punks. Freaks. Veiners (from where they ingest their drugs). But are they the Leaders of Tomorrow? "Probably not," replied Dr. Piajung. - Fred Phreik, all of 11-years old, claimed this is his third appearance at the Hash Bash. Did he show up for the dope? "YEAH, THAT AND some good-looking chicks.. yeah, that's why I'm here," he said. Danny DeParidelio hitchhiked to the Hash Bash with three of his "buddies." Danny heard that a local disc jockey was going to be present, and he spent most of the morning looking for him. He walked around, asked people their names, and frequently glanced around the Diag. "I guess I'll keep looking for him," he said glumly. "I mean, h said he was going to be here." Stan Kachusky doesn't want to miss the revolution. Naomi Lailot wants to get pregnant, then married. Danny DeParidelio wants to find his disc jockey hero. Nick Katsarelas received more than afew phone calls from sorority members last week. His column appears every Wednes- day on this page. AP Photo by Loren Portnow A YOUNG HASH BASH participant takes a toke from her pipe as she celebrates with several hundred April Fools Day revelers. The Diag was overrun yesterday with high school students and other foreigneis to the University community, each of whom had his or her own special reasons for being there. Y } oIJ 3E14 U I Nine lv ICirs (P4fEdlitorial I'rvetloii LETTERS TO THE DAILY: Time for a serious look at PIRGIM I Vol. XC, No. 144 News Phone: 764-055 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan ron -an Owens' eath TE SCORED an outstanding H athletic and political triumph in the 1936 Berlin Olympic games, destroying Hitler's plans for an Aryan .athletic showcase. He broke five world records within 45 minutes. And on Monday, Jesse Owens, perhaps the greatest, most famous athlete in track history, died of lung cancer. Of his death, President Carter said :*"Perhaps no athlete better symbolized Twobirth c IRTH CONTROL matters came up in the news twice this week, with one bit of information offering cause for hope and the other making "good old American know-how" look awful. SThe good news is that the Midwest whas left the nation's usual trendsetters An the East and West Coasts behind in drawing just a hair's breadth away "from a Zero Population Growth rate. The psychological effect on the Anation of hearing that the Midwest has ceased adding further burdens to our limited resources could inspire others ;to head in that direction,.too. Less cheery tidings came from the the human struggle against tyranny, poverty, and racial bigotry." It's sadly ironic that Carter can pronounce such a eulogy at the same time he is clamping down on trade to enforce his backward Olympic boycott decision. A boycott of the Soviet Olym- pics closes completely the opportunity for any other athlete to repeat the moral victories of Jesse Owens. ;ontrol notes U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), which has been promoting birth control and voluntary sterilization overseas. The Richmond, Va. Times-Dispatch reports that some AID workers have been pressuring people to undergo sterilization. If the reports are true, the gover- nment must quickly clamp controls on the field workers who committed these ethical violations. The availability of sterilization might well be able to ease some of the Third World's problems, but that doesn't mean the operations should be done on anything less than a wholly volitional basis. To the Daily: In light of its recent involve- ment in the anti-draft movement, I think it is time to take a serious look at the Public Interest Research Group In Michigan (PIRGIM). PIRGIM has played an integral part in organizing rallies and a teach-in promoting the anti-draft issue. I went to the PIRGIM of- fice and asked how they decided to become involved in the anti- draft movement. I was told that this past summer the state board of PIRGIM voted to pass a resolution against registration for the draft in peacetime following the lead of the American Civil Liberties Union. I was not told that they took a poll to see how students felt about it. As it turns out, a nation-wide poll conducted in February by Today's Student newspaper showedthat 52.7 per cent of the students interviewed actually favored the registration for the draft. While 10.3 per cent were un- decided, only 35.8 per cent were opposed to registration. Clearly, PIRGIM's involvement in the an- Knight story To the Daily: I have to hand it to the editors of the Daily for their unique jour- nalistic techniques. I bet you guys even scooped the Chicago Tribune on the Dewey victory.; C'mon gang. Did Bobby Knight really, really apply? Just checking, you know. I have a suggestion for you in- formed folk in the make-up-the- news room. Please list all of the names of applicants that your "informed sources" tell you about so that we readers can keep on top of the nonsense that gets disseminated throughout the University. Just print the (tames of everyone who was probably dying to "apply" along with Bob- by Knight: Prince Charles, Secretariat, Bani -Sadr, Joel Thompson (good student, great leaper), and Denny Crum. TV has no place in my life; all the Detroit papers are, well, Detroit papers, full of typically Detroit-style reporting; the New York Times is too affected lately; Attacks hit To the Daily: I'd like to say that I don't give two shits about: Raoul Kopelman; his arguments with J. L. Allen; Mr. Allen's "attack" of Prof. Cohen; Cohen's complaints with Mr. H. Scott Prosterman's ar- ticle; or Mr. Prosterman, who started the whole thing by writ- ti-draft movement has not been in accordance with the sentiments of the majority of students. PIRGIM is supposed to be a public interest research group. Its prospectus after its first year of operation states, "It is in ob- taining well- documented, highly objective research material that PIRGIM performs its most im- portant educational function. Concomitantly, it is in its capacity to translate this infor- mation to the community in well- understood, and yet not oversim- plified terms, in raising the community's awareness of a problem, and in turn affecting major policy decisions, that PIRGIM can serve its chief public interest role." In many of these activities, PIRGIM follows these guidelines. Examples are banking and grocery surveys, bottle bill studies, and tenants rights. But on other issues the information collected and translated is by no means highly objective. The anti- draft movement is proof. Another example is PIRGIM's active in- volvement in the a real scoop. and radio is full of Kansas, Jour- ney, and the Bay City Rollers ever since WIQB died. Look at my plight! My only connection with the real world is the Daily. Leave the real world issues to the people who know how to write stories: UPI, AP, and Reuters. Better yet, simply print pictures. Your graphics are beautiful. -Bill Robinson March 27 decriminalization of marijuana. At the University of Ontario in Windsor, students felt that the Ontario Public.. Research Group was not actually acting in the public interest. Many dissatisfied students demanded the return of the money collected from them at the beginning of the semester and got it. According to a PIRGIM worker, PIRGIM collects bet- weeen $12,000 and $21,000 each, semester via the box students check off at registration. This is fine for a group that does resear- ch in the public interest. But for a group with specific political in- terests that do not necessarily represent the opinions of students to enjoy this privilege is unfair to other political interest groups on,- campus. Either other political groups should have their names on a checklist at registration, or PIRGIM should stop using our money to pursue its own political, interests. I favor the latter. If it, doesn't, the registration checklist privilege should be revoked. Something has to be changed because.,things are definitely wrong the way they are. -Art Humbert Treasurer, CARP (Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles) March-28 Olympic boycott immoral To the Daily: When the Russians invaded Afghanistan, President Carter not only struck back at them through trade sanctions, he also struck out at an innocent third party which happened to be doing business with the Russians-the Olympics. In labor relations this is called a "secondary boycott,' and has been illegal for decades. In my opinion it is always immoral. Now it appears that most European countries will besen- ding their athletes to Moscow, and that just about the only ally Carter has is the right-wing prime minister of Great Britain. But Carter is still issuing tight- lipped statements that "it has been decided" that the U.S. team is not going. It is a pity that the man hasn't yet learned that the U.S. president has no direct con- trol over private activities like- the Olympics. Press discussion has centered on only two more steps Carter can take. He can try to bully the U.S. Olympic Committee (the gloup with the power) into going along with his wishes. Weshave already witnessed that sorry spectacle once. Or, since he can't cancel the athletes' visas, he can revoke their passports. What a truly noble step for a president to take. There is one more step, however, which would be in keeping with his general ap- proach. Carter can always have the athletes arrested for treason. President Johnson would hav loved it. -David Cahill March 24 Profs concerned about Stegeman plan lk OEEIN GLAD YD1V G T EOU A SjAE C TM T RkE A , ..gy orflO ! To the Daily: Despite growing opposition, the University's Regents have voted to sell Mr. Stegeman the crucial piece of land for his skyscraper building, which will be twice as high as the present University Towers, and one-third the height of the Empire State Building. We suspect that much of the Univer- sity community is surprised about and opposed to this, preferring to see instead a careful study and a more sensible residential development of the area. With this letter we wish to help give that sentiment a focus. Impact on the University. The building would be an enormous intrusion, close to the center of the learning-commercial-living environment of our University. It will have permanent effects. The campus' appearance and views, The Phantom Project. Mr. Stegeman has never presented more than a few vague ideas and a crude model of his "proposal." Therefore, the University com- munity has had no tangible project to which to respond. Many members of the University were taken unaware by the Regents' recent revival of this matter, thinking it had been shelved-while others of us believed it impossible that it would receive enough Regental votes ever to come to the present situation. In any event, the Regents lacked the factual basis for making a responsible decision. Careful Planning and Safeguards. The Regents have provided virtually no safeguards against an unfavorable building on this site. There has been little bers of the University are also concerned about this matter (from any point of view). If you are, please contact one of us and /or voice your concerns directly to President Shapiro and other University officers. Gardner Ackley, Department of Economics; John A. Bailey, Department of Near Eastern Studies; Harry B. Benford, Department of Naval Architec- ture and Marine Engineering; Harvey E. Brazer, Department of Economics; Frank P. Casa Department of Romance Languages and Literatures; Douglas D. Crary, Department of Geography; Samuel J. Elder- sveld, Department of Political Science; David C. Huntington, Department of History and Art; Movses J. Kaldjian, Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering; Michael D. ii.I iii , A 1 f/l N//IIIIE - . .