0 OPINION Tuesday, September 15, 1981 Page 4 The Michigan Daily . ...... . . ..... . . ........... How I spent my summer: Part I There are 564 bolts in a Baltimore city jail cell. When you'rv in one for eight hours with nothing to do, you find ways of passing the time. Which brings me to Going To Jail Pointer, #1: Never go to jail without bringing along a good book. Papillon comes to mind as a good choice. Howard Witt the Baltimore newspaper where I worked, I trudged up the steps to the second-floor apar- tment I was sharing with five other student- types. "Howard, did you hear?" my five room- mates screamed in unison. 'We've been raided! We've been violated! We've been sear- ched!" Into my clammy hands they thrust several important-looking papers. "Search and Seizure Warrant," read one. "Inventory of Property Seized," read another. "Affidavit." "Art. 27 Sect. 276-302 of the Annotated Code of Maryland." The words all seemed so leeeegal. AND THEN THE biggie. "Marijuana." Pointer #2: Don't panic. Quickly review the crimes for which the death penalty is applicable. I scanned the warrant. It said the police had seized "15 Marijuana Plants" and "1 Film Con- tainer (containing Hashish)." John's plants. I realized the 15 marijuana plants belonged to one of our roommates, John. He had been sunning them out on the back fire escape every afternoon. I had never really given them a second thought. After all, I was from Ann Arbor (where marijuana is only slightly harder to get than Band-Aids) and we were living near Johns Hopkins University (where I assumed the medical students regularly tested the drug for its healing powers). BUT SOME RESPONSIBLE neighbor had, obviously spied the plants, assumed they weren't poison ivy, and called the police. Who promptly came by with a search warrant while no one was home. Our landlord was only too happy to let them in-we were a little behind in our rent and were due for some harassment. Pointer #3: Always pay your :rent on time. So that explained whose marijuana plants Dick Tracy and Co. had confiscated. ''But whose hashish did they get?" my roommates quizzed me suspiciously. "It didn't belong to any of us!" they pressed. Well, it certainly wasn't mine, I told them. Why, I hadn't even seen any hashish since my freshman year, when I bought a little just to try it. UH, OH. SOME tiny little dendrite fired across some tiny little synapse deep in 'the memory banks of my brain. What had I done with that eentsy, teentsy bit of hashish I had bought? I raced up to my room. It looked like a pack of wild dogs, rather than a few of Baltimore's Finest, had torn through it. Drawers emptied onto the floor; suits pulled from hangers; mattress upended. Zealous chaps, those cops. And there, on my desk, pried open with my own Phillips screwdriver, sat the small metal box in which I kept my checkbooks, my ear- nings statements, my cash-and my hashish. SO THAT'S where I'd stashed my hash some 21/ years ago. Yes, there beneath my cancelled checks, my old transcripts, my ,1978 MSA Personal Property Insurance Form,4ay a Kodak Film container with an eery, weeny clump of a dried out variant of Cannabis sativa. Just waiting for some inquisitive police officer to find. Pointer #4: Never buy hashish as a freshman and keep it until you're a senior. Along with the official documents, the police had left a scrawled note ordering us to call Sgt. Buford Viars at 9 a.m. I was, to say the least, scared. Dorothy, we're not in Ann Arbor anymore, I told myself. No $5 tickets for pot offenses in beautiful Maryland (pronounced "Merlin" by the locals). The maximum penalty is more like one year in jail and/er a $1,000 fine. NATURALLY, MY FIRST thought was to escape from reality. But by now it was 1:30 a.m.-too late to hit any bars. Pointer #5: Never have a need to get wasted when the bars are closed and the. police have just borrowed your hashish. I didn't sleep too well that night. Every few minutes, Sgt. Buford Viars, some potbellied southern Good Ol' Boy, would march into my nightmares, chewing on some Skoal. "So we got us one of these here college boys," .he laughed, a drop of brown spittle rolling down 'his chin as one of his officers shackled my han- ds and legs. Tomorrow: Howard goes to jail. The continuation of Witt's saga will ap- pear in tomorro w's Daily. His column normally appears every Tuesday. Yes, I was arrested and spent eight hours of my summer in.jail. Law-abiding (well, okay, I do drive 65 mph on the highway), Mother- fearing, Apple pie-eating me. Needless to say, I was quite unprepared for the experience. IT ALL STARTED very early on the morning of July 10. At about 1 a.m., after a long day at ;, Weasel Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Vol. XCI1,No.5 420 Moynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board BEFORE WE BEAK UP THIS ORIENTATION Gf!OUF Fop, THEE LAsr TIME, TOES ANYONE. HAVE ANY FtNAL- QUESTfoNS ABOUT W NAT TK-16e. SEEN, m Ago-w LIFE AT THE "U" IN &ENERAL.? J Y IRe,p OVRWLMN. TSTOP ME FROK~ ] "~*BECOMIN& .TVST ANOf}lWR- Ac--E) NUAEF 4>)sVQrSAOFA~.E,~r RUM'RtTY HE., CAL A UNYER~'t / By Robert Lence W oYrANaT YO .UST KE.EP YWE CONFOR.M ,I LIKE EVEI($ /~ Oppression underlies " S adat' S democracy' South Africa Rugby team A NWAR SADAT'S recent crack- 'down on his opponents is distressing not only-for what it says of the condition of Egyptian liberties, but for its implications for the long-term stability of the Egyptian state. Last week, President Sadat was busy defending his actions, which have in- cluded prohibiting anti-government activities in the nation's mosques and churches, shutting down six newspapers, arresting nearly 1,600 political and religiour leaders, and depositing the patriarch of the Copts, a small Christian sect. Sadat gathered the foreign press corps at the small town where he was born and scolded them for what he claimed was, unfair coverage of his policies. Later in the week, Sadat's government announced that a referen- dum specially called by Sadat over- whelmingly supported him. "Democracy is flourishing in Egypt," Sadat insists. Sadat's diatribes and suspicious elections aside, what seems to be flourishing in Egypt is not so much democracy as blatant oppression. Certainly the strife between the Cop- tic minority and the Islamic majority is deplorable, but the heavy hand of Sadat is surely worse. If Sadat is seeking to ensure Egyp- tian stability, he's going about it all wrong. Sadat is .much more likely to find real stability by allowing free and rational discussion than by turning radicals into quasi-martyrs by throwing them into jail. In the past, Sadat has been a wise and perceptive leader, but there's one lesson he might learn from the debacle of his friend the Shah of Iran. Im- prisoning one's enemies might be sim- ple and easy, but neither it nor ser- mons on "flourishing democracy" necessarily ensure continued rule. brings politics to In diplomatic circles, American policy on South Africa has led to a growing isolation for the United States, not only from developing countries, but also from its own Western allies. Now the controversy is spreading into spor- ts, with a boycott of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles the likely result. SOUTH AFRICA'S national rugby team, known as the "Springbox," is scheduled to play three matches in the United States in late September, following a turbulent tour of New Zealand where protesters opposing South African racial policies have repeatedly disrupted play. African nations which boycotted the 1976 Montreal Games to protest New Zealand's ex- tensive sporting ties with South Africa already have threatened to stay away from Los Angeles if the South African tour takes place. A concerned U.S. Olympic Committee has appealed to the U.S. Eastern Rugby Union, which arranged the Springbox tour, to withdraw its invitation. Requests have been made to the State Department to revoke the South African players' visas. In the meantime, a coalition called Stop the Apartheid Rugby Tour, made up of about 100 religious, civil rights, sports, and political groups, is planning protests similar to those which occurred in New Zealand. The plans By Reed Kramer have prompted Rugby officials in Chicago to move the Sept. 19 game to an undisclosed private facility.. AFTER MAYOR ED Koch canceled a per- mit to use a New York City-owned stadium, the Sept. 26 match was shifted to Rochester, N.Y.; but Rochester also has canceled the match. The largest demonstrations now are planned for. Albany, N.Y., Springbox is scheduled to play on Sept. 22. Last month SART obtained documentary evidence that the U.S. Eastern Rugby Union, whose 1980 budget was only $4,000, had accep- ted a $25,000 donation from a South African businessman with close government ties. The contribution was made in December 1980, the same month that the union invited the Springbox to the United States. But U.S. Eastern Rugby Union officials denied charges that the donation influenced their decision and reject'the argument that South African national sports are discriminatory, saying the team no longer is all white. (One player is of mixed ancestry, or "colored," in the South African designation.) Union officials have refused to consider scut- tling the tour, which now seems a certainty. SSr r s ~*sorts AFRICAN COUNTRIES regard the rugby visit as an important break in the wall of in- ternational isolation that has been thrown up" around South African sports. The last national athletic team from South Africa to visit the United States was the 1978 Davis Cup tennis entry and therrugby tour is seen as symbolic of warmer U.S., relations with Pretoria. Fueling the Olympic boycott drive is the additional frustration of having little other means for effectively registering concern about overall American policies, which many Africans feel have had a devastating effect on the continent. Mounting South African aggressiveness-evident especially in military actions against neighboring states like Angola and Mozambique-Pretoria's refusal to surrender control over Namibia and the continuing enforcement of apartheid at home all are seen as consequences of an of- ficial-attitude in Washington that shies away from criticism and attributes virtually any disturbance in the region to Soviet meddling: Kramer is editor of the Durham, N. C. - based Africa News. He wrote this article for Pacific News Service. f rsr, iN .4- I / (i { Bonzon om ics To the Daily: Letters to the Daily: si;''Q9? I -Bonzo What's the word? Say it again, One more time. Now that's the word. So let it be heard far and wide, loud and clear. It's your key to mental health for the next four years. Now what's the word? Say it again. I can't hear you. "Bonzo" "Bonzo" "Bonzo" "Bonzo" "Bonzo'' "Bonzo" :' I 77 . '71I jr . , I"