Page 4-Thursday, April 3, 1980-The Michigan Daily t1jigegl rYears 'o f Editorial F'reedloml Magic of the Haight is gone i* Vol. XC, No. 145 News Phone: 764-0552 1, Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan I Taiwan 1a) T HE EYESof the world's human rights activists have been on the country of Taiwan for the last few weeks, as dozens of political opponents of the island's government have been brought to trial. To Americans the wording of some of the Taiwanese laws might seem almost absurdly vague; others are so broad they would probably be ruled unconstitutional in this country. One law prohibits "directing crowds to make violent threats against military personnel." Another makes it a crime to ','prevent public functionaries from carrying out their duty." Comparatively few Americans area aware that a bill is being endorsed in' the U.S. Senate that, if passed, would. create many of the same sorts of restrictions that are being used to- persecute the dissidents in Taiwan. Senate bill 1722, which made its first in U.S. appearance as Senate bill 1 in the early '70s, is a comprehensive criminal justice code. Its #provisions outlaw a vast range of acts, and some are every bit as absurd as those of Taiwan. Under the bill, the distributor of a leaflet critical of the military could be imprisoned if the leaflet reached the hands of an enlisted man or woman. One section proscribes hampering the work of any government employee, whether he or she is a soldier or not. Senate bill 1 failed, perhaps because it was introduced by the Nixon administration and its oppressiveness was therefore suspect even before it reached subcommittee. Senate bill 1722 poses a greater danger: Its best-knwon sponsor, the generally liberal chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will to some extent mask the fact that the bill is very similar to its forebear. The senator's name: Edward Kennedy. SAN FRANCISCO-Fifteen years ago, a street sign marked the crossroads of young America. Orphaned by the death of a beloved president, cast into the army by what they felt was an unjust war, given material wealth without moral guideliens for using it, a new generation fell apart and came together at the corner of Haight and Ashbury. Fifteen years ago. It was a time of flower children, the Jefferson Airplane, and the Grateful Dead. Of marijuana and LSD. Of communal living, long hair, and outrageous clothing that once and for all, divorced the young from the old. IT WAS, PAUL KANTNER recalls, a time of innocence-"a never never land." "It was an experimental time," says Kan- tner, who helped found the Jefferson Airplane back then and is the only original member of the band, now called the Jefferson Starship. "We trusted the drugs we took, almost of- fered ourselves as guinea pigs for a whole new way ofdealing with each other." Joan Didion was less kind. In "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," she called what was going on here in the mid '60s "social hemorrhaging." "San Francisco was where the missing children were gathering andacalling them- selves 'hippies'," she wrote, and she meant the Haight-Ashbury. BUT NOW THE magic is gone, along with the posters that once converted the walls of Haight Street into a miniature Peking, an- nouncing free concerts in nearby Golden Gate Park and promoting the slogans of the left calling for one world, one people. Today, Haight-Ashbury is like many neigh- borhoods in the city, sporting a variety of shops and restaurants, noble Victorians being renovated, and a sizable gay community bringing in new business. Few signs remain of the time when the anti- war movement flourished and Grateful Dead leader Jerry Garcia poured forth the first psychedelic chords from his black and gold Gibson.s "In the begninning, it was a very pleasant thing," says Alex Holcombe, whose jewelry store has operated on the corner of Haight and Ashbury since 1932. "BUT IT DEGENERATED into a very heavy drug culture. I never went out of business, but we did lose 19 stores on this street." Dr. David Smith, founder and medical director of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, has seen it all. "You saw the beginnings of the counter- culture and psychedelic scene as early as 1964," he says. "In '65 and '66 it accelerated, and in '67 it peaked, the primary things being the rock groups and the expanded use of LSD." The clinic opened in 1967, operating 24 hours a day, says Smith, and treating as many as 200 patients a day, mostly for bad LSD trips and short term outpatient care. TODAY, THE CLINIC has evolved and ex- panded to include five sections, including detoxification for heroin addicts and a women's center, as well as a volunteer training branch and a research department. By 1970, the Haight-Ashbury was in the throes of a major heroin epidemic. The in- nocence that had heralded the new age had given way to crime and violence. The rock stars had long since packed up and moved to more pleasant surroundings in the suburbs. "It turned into a jungle," remembers Kan- tner, who blames that on the police. "They allowed it to happen almost gleefully. Sort of to let the flower children face the tough By David Einstein was a big influx of different populations, in- cluding the gay community," says Smith. "They came in and bought a lot of th houses and renovated them, and they open0 a lot of shops and worked to improve th, area." Renovation brought new problems, however. Real estate prices skyrocketed; with some rents jumping as much as 300 per cent when apartment houses were sold, Neighborhood organizations fear that redevelopment will result in a street decorated with tourist shops, driving land prices up further. THERE STILL ARE people on the stree! who look like character actors out of the original play, although Kantner says he doesn't feel a lot of life in the Haight. But Hope for break in hostage, crisis should be tempered, THESE VIETNAM PROTESTORS were one part of the culture that called Haight-Ashbury its home in the late 1960s. LTHOUGH THERE seems to. e some new hope that the merican hostages in Tehran may be transferred from the custody of the militant "students" to the custody of the Iranian government, it's hard to get too excited. We have been disappointed too many times in the 152 days since the U.S. Embassy was seized to have much confidence that the militants will listen to the government, or that the government has any power, There is still less reason to hope for an endto the crisis when one reads the Ayatollah Khomeini's latest blatherings. On Tuesday, the raving Imam issued a speech that indicates he is either insane or sincerely determined to fight a holy war against theU.S. Consider Khomeini's statement that President Carter, by expressions of "moderation and flattery," is "trying to pull the wool over our eyes and . . . play a trick on our nation.'' Does Khomeini mean that moderation will get us nowhere? The Ayatollah continued: "Carter must realize that his support of the deposed shah.. . does not leave room for a so-called honorable solution to the issue. Does this mean that Khomeini intends to leave the U.S. no ways out of the crisis short of acceding to the impossible demand totreturn the shah? Finally, Khomeini said: "It is up to all the oppr ssed... to come to their senses and defend what is right and true and to rid their countries of the filthy presence" of individuals like the "satanic" Carter. Could this statement be extended to refer to the hostages? Khomeini opened his pronouncement with "In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful." We Amerioans can only invoke the Lord's name in another context: "God help us." world." The Haight looked, according to Smith, "like a bombed out ghetto." "There was so much crime and violence that only the most hardy of'businessmen could hang in there." BUT HANG IN they did, and the neigh- borhood made a comeback. "I would say that 1971 and '72 was when there. were some major community organization successes and the neighborhood started getting together," says Smith. "The community started taking control and believing that they could handle it through rehabilitation rather than the urban redevelopment plans that were advocated by city hall. "As soon as things started improving, there Smith and others who work and live there ar happy with the way things are turning out. "The old idealism still survives, but it's tempered with reality," said Smith, adding that as far as he is concerned, the neigh- borhood has gone from being one of the most dangerous in the city to one of the safest. - Perhaps most clear-cut proof of change in the Haight, however, is supplied by Kantner. He still goes back every so often, but when he does it's not to play free concerts or take drugs. He goes to the MacDonald's on the end of Haight Street and buys his daughter 4 cheeseburger. David Einstein is a writer for the AssoL ciated Press. M SA sells its own .fee haike Higgins AND NOWA LOOK AT THE WEATHER,., .. \ \: . N ref ^ \\\ \ ,; C \\ \. \ \ :; c P :. A. A \ " pAA \ . °r ;OOH 1 ti. A .t'n: : \A V RnAA . \\ : ' r... The Michigan Student Assem- bly (MSA) has found yet another application of its often contorted logic. MSA has included a question on its April 8 and 9 ballot to deter- mine whether students support a proposed student government fee hike from the current $2.92 assessed each student every term to $4.25 per term. Yet in its meeting last week, the Assembly also decided to use up to $400 of student funds to promote passage of the fee hike. The two decisions are in blatant contradiction. PRESUMABLY, the purpose of the ballot question is to deter- mine student opinion on the proposed increase. To simultaneously use student money to try to influence the out-* come of the ballot is to shape the results into what MSA wanted to see in the first place. Since MSA is determined to bring student opinion into align- ment with its own, there would seem to be little need to even ask the question or spend the $400. But if MSA is to win approval from the University Regents, who make the final decision on What do the Michigan Student Assembly (MSA), the University of Michigan, all Michigan state universities, all federal agencies (such as the Defense Depar- tment, HEW, and VISTA), and all the local school boards have in common? All have the common practice of analyzing their budget needs, drafting budget proposals, lobbying for their budget needs with legislators and the public-whomever their fun- ding sources might be-and requesting a vote by members of their funding source on the budget they propose. Our University maintains an office of "state relations" with full-time, University-paid lob- byists to promote its budget needs. All state universities similarly lobby with paid person- any fee assessment increase, a successful ballot proposal is essential. The Regents will almost definitely deny MSA the increase if the proposal does not receive strong student approval in a referendum. Thus, MSA is determined to win favorable results in the referendum vote, and is even willing to spend sub- stantial amounts of student money to achieve that end. CERTAINLY, it is accep- table-and even desirable-for competing interest groups to at- tempt to influence student opinion prior to the ballot. Such competition serves to Should stude funds be spent sway opinions By Dave Meyer provide student balanced informa sides of the issue.I bying-is the foundat groups, not our elec tatives. If MSA members enough about the in may very well bej should work th political parties- Action Coalition ( Student Alliance Representation (SA dependently, spend money to convince merits of the propo It is clearly a conf for members of the promote the questio It'is clearly not t MSA, an organization n t presumably committed to representing student opinion, to, actively endorse the fee increase prio tote vt. uthe mori is 'blatantly unfair, if not unethical, for MSA to finance promotion of its members' opinions with student funds. Why " 9 * one small interest group is en- titled to use student funds to campaign for its position whil voters with all opposing interests are forced tion on both to struggle with their own fund- But such lob- raising has not been explained. ion of interest This would obviously result in a fled represen- distinctly unbalanced presen- tation 'of information for student sfeel strongly voters. Even if this is a fairly crease, which common practice, as some MSA justified, they members contend, precedent jrough their does not necessarily justify its -the Peoples' continuance. PAC) or the If our MSA representatives ar4 for Better aspiring to represent student BRE )-or in- opinion, as is their function, then ling their own they should respond to the ballot students of the results-not attempt to form osed increase. them. lict of interest e Assembly to Dave Meyer covers student rn's passage. governmentsfor the Daily .he function ofg MSA needs the requested money for its programs. Over a three year period, MSA is requesting a total increase of only $1.23 per student per term. led Over 90 per cent of the funding increase being requested will be going to Student Legal Services, " which provides free legal help for all students. This student program has not had a budget in- crease in two years. During that our hundred two years, its case load has more tiny sum out of than doubled and continued to climb. During that time, there has been 27 per cent inflation, Daily reporter reducing by more than one-fourth MSA couldn't the real purchasing power of its idget with let- budget. The lawyers in the r with articles program, who provide excellent page, which services, are seriously underpaid ent funds. But for persons of their professional 0-1 * . . Oristh expense justifee By Greg Hesterberg ..\s\ ' , . ,: ' 2" J suggesting a budget figure, and it has the right and obligation to explain and support the budget figures it suggests. Who besides people within the MSA and its programs can ex- plain its budget needs? Who knows the prices of telephone calls for their offices, of pencils and paper, of law books, and of budget needs. F dollars is indeed a t a total of $77,000. A MICHIGAN I has asked why just explain its bu ters to the editor o for the editorial would not use stud