The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 61, No. 6, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 27, 1973 Page: 2 of 8
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To the Rice community:
Consider:
1. The "zeitgeist" or spirit of
the times.
Watergate, Clifford Irving,
Texas Stock Scandal, the ubiqu-
ty of the Mafia and organized
crime.
2. The nature of fixing sport-
ing events.
The difficulty of fixing an
event increases with the number
<>f units (persons, horses, etc)
involved. Therefore football is
more difficult to fix than bas-
ketball and basketball more dif-
ficult than boxing.
M. The battle of the sexes or
tennis match or whatever in
the Astrodome last Thurs-
day night.
J? you considered these three
The last hustle in Houston: did Riggs throw it?
things, then you are now ready
to consider.
4. The perfect con, or, The Last
Hustle in Houston.
In Huckleberry Finn, the
Duke and the Dauphin roamed
the country with their road-
show billed as "The Royal
Nonesuch" direct from perform-
ances at court. The entertain-
ment consisted of the two aging
pei'formers prancing about un-
clothed on stage. The audience
paid premium prices to attend.
The show never played a town
more than one night, because
word would get around.
Last week the King and the
Chauvinist Pig appeared, and
The Royal Nonesuch had come
to Houston.
The Pig had predicted a great
display of undaunted skill (by
the rice thresher
editorial
owlook
After experiencing1 the courteous treatment accord-
( 1 the fans and press at the Astrodome it's somewhat
i-siH'Hi'tening- to come home to the undue harassment
fecund at Rice Stadium.
Those who noted the 3 brown uniformed officers
facing the Rice student section can be happy in knowing
that, they weren't Rice Campus Security, but constables
hired by the athletic department for security purposes.
The problem stems from excesses by these con-
stables who, being untrained in the first place and im-
i iroperly briefed in the second, managed to harass the
Thresher Sports Editor, the Campanile photographer,
and the Rice Owl. No doubt the fact that the director of
Hire stadium security for the last twenty years died last
year has something to do with the breakdown. The
1 b>11 remains one that has to be corrected. Witness
• i"<lowing conversation:
Officer: T'm sorry, son, you're going to have to
>_•; . the field.
Kditor: But why—I have the proper sideline cre-
/ ! i!ials.
Officer: You have to leave, your pass is wrong.
Confused Editor: What's wrong with it?
( M'ficer: Are you disputing my authority?
Beleagured Editor: (beginning to get perturbed as
v:;iced by reddening complexion) No, I just want to
know what the hell's going on.
Eventually the officer gave in but. only after 5 min-
i,U'> of itjane argument. The fact was that there was
rr ■thing' wrong with my credentials. As near as I can
figure the officer's main objection was to my looks,
v Inch 1 may apologize for but can't possibly change.
Hopefully, Augie Erfurth, who is in charge of sta-
dium security and the hiring of these constables, will be
able to change some of the practices before the Notre
i ame game. If not, we may have to issue riot gear to
staff photographers at the home games.
—bill bell
rlci
thresher
STEVE JACKSON
Editor
WINTON W. BUCKLEY
Business Manager
himself) before millions. The
King had vowed to avenge
women's tennis. And the people
came to see the spectacle (over
30,000 at $6-$10 each) and* the
spectacle was beheld all over
the world (70 million?). When
it was all over, the King had
vanquished the Pig. The King
said she did it only for
women's tennis (that great al-
truistic cause), not the money.
Some thought this would be
the Pig's last hustle.
However, there is some reas-
onable reason to believe that
the Pig had actually outconned
or outhustled all of us even in
losing. That is, the Pig may
have committed in Houston in
the Astrodome, before millions
of observers, between the hours
of 7:30 and 9:30pm, on Thurs-
day, Sept. 20, 1973, the PER-
FECT CON. The action on this
event around the world was fan-
tastic. Las Vegas odds were 5
to 2 against King. Even better
odds could be had if you bet
that the Pig would lose in three
straight sets. And tennis is a
funny sport. Even the greatest
professionals sometimes play
like bumbling amateurs. And a
55 year old man with "Sugar
Daddy" emblazoned across his
back (worth $20,000 to him)
with tennis elbow and cramp-
ing fingers—playing under the
greatest of pressure for $100,-
000—playing before millions of
spectators—playing against one
of the greatest athletes that
womankind has ever produced
(King of the Court and that in-
cludes the Pig's first victim) ?
Maybe.
The Pig says that he will bet
on anything that requires skill,
be it tennis, golf, cards, or
whatever. Does "whatever" in-
clude his ability to lose con-
vincingly? Did the Pig bet
against himself? If he did, we
will never know, for the condi-
tions were right for the per-
fect con.
Randy Evans
P.S. If I ani found at the bot-
tom of Buffalo Bayou wearing
concrete tennis shoes, maybe
that will cement the credibility
of this analysis.
Vote: Ms. Weanie just can'f lose
To the Rice community:
The following represents my
impressions of the three can-
didates running for the office
of Mayor of Houston, after
their appearance at Lovett on
Sept. 24.
Dick Gottlieb opened the dis-
cussion with a ravishing] y ori-
ginal statement: "The buck
stops in the mayor's office."
Wonderful, Dick. Now we know
what will happen to our tax
dollars. So what else is new?
Dan Fein offered two major
ideas: a) that the police force
contains Klu Klux Ivlan mem-
bers; and b) that blacks and
chicanos should be allowed to
establish their own police force,
to police their own peripheries.
My response to these ideas is:
if the Klu Klux Klan is so hor-
rible, why do you propose form-
ing one of your own? Which is,
after all, what such an orga-
nization would amount to. Try
again, Dan.
Fred Hofheinz seemed to ac-
cuse Gottlieb of trying to
horn in on his campaign plat-
form. Share and share alike,
Fred. After all, Gottlieb has to
have something to stand on.
Which candidate do I favor?
Why, me, of course. Vote for
me, Weanie Woman, in No-
vember! Who cares if I'm un-
deraged! I've got youth on my
side, which is about as tangible
an asset as any Gottlieb, Fein
and Hofheinz possess.
Ms. Weanie
Food service turkey's cheep
To the editor:
The Ecology Award of the
Week goes to The Rice Univer-
sity Food Service for coming
up with such a novel use for
normally unusable poultry
parts. We are referring, of
course, to the chicken/turkey
substitute served in the colleges
on Sunday and Tuesday. Know-
ing that real turkey is one of
the cheapest protein sources
available, those economic wiz-
ards at the food service went
one better by obtaining the in-
gredients for the aforemen-
tioned meals at no charge (of
course, no fool would pay good
money for refuse poultry
parts!). In fact, they may have
been paid by some poor poultry
farmer to haul it a way.
Yes, it's a compliment to the
Central Kitchen that they can
come up with a tasty chicken
(or was it turkey?) substitute
which really pleases the palate
while at the same time being
cheaper than . . . well, you
know. In fact, why can't we
have this delightful selection
served at every meal? With
such economy being practiced,
we might not even have to in-
crease R&B next year. Think
of all the ways it could be pre-
pared — fried, baked, grilled,
chopped, liquefied . . .
Hats off to the Food Service
for another wonderful meal!
Admiringly,
Gary Brewton
Lovett '76
"Impressions" repercussions
Back in the elder days of my "faults") in his own analysis.
Ill
Ralph Umbarger Calendar Kditor
Bill Hell Sports Kditor
Bill Fulton Head Photographer
Ruthie Melton .... Circulation Manager
IT. David Danglo . Managing Kditor
Imhic.-t Johnson Assistant Kditor
flarv Hrewlon .... . . Assistant Editor
Barry Dale Advertising Manager
St.'-ff: Larry Barron. Dana Blankenhorn. Tim Cooper, Susie Fields, Kathy
Ford. Fiiis Hejtmaneilc, Andy Hurley, Virginia dee, Kate Jones, Cathe Krause.
Chip J .moduli. Robert Margolis, Tricia Began, Dan Miller, Wendy Nordstrom.
Mark Onak, Frank Prosier, Joel Rennie, Irene Sehumiliver, Don Shewey, Lee
Sowers, Linda Stephens. Terry 'J'rant, Malcolm Waddell.
The Bice Thresher, official student newspaper of Rice University, is pub-
lished weekly on Thursday except during holidays and examination periods by
students of Bice University, Houton, Texas 77001, telephone 528-4141 X221 or
6l!j. The opinions herein are mt necessarily those of anyone except the writers.
Obviously.
the rice thresher, September 27, 1973—page 2
high school career, T was
known, through the medium of
the school newspaper, as a
writer of humorous and sati-
rical material concerning any-
thing which attracted my at-
tention . Writing such mate-
rial. even though helped by
natural talent, often require?
the writer to spend large
amounts of time doing no more
than thinking — striving for
that artful turn-of-phrase, that
mind-blowing pun or twist of
reality that creates the most
humorous effect; sometimes it
demands the time otherwise,
alloted to lesser subjects like
English themes.
So then, imagine my envy
when I read an article in the
September 20 Thresher written
by someone who, seemingly
without any effort to do so,
wrote a terribly funny compo-
sition which I enjoyed reading
as much as the Misclassifieds.
I refer, of course, to Marko
Fong's "First Impressions of
'Some First Impressions'." (The
latter is by Lou Wortham.)
This piece of writing was an
excellent satire of those self-
styled critics who in some ob-
scure way manage to extract
all sorts of technical and topi-
cal faults from a work of
writing which is obviously an
uncomplicated essay penned for
light reading, especially the
critic who demonstrates those
same faults (or what he calls
The technique of the piece is
interesting, since, instead of
openly lambasting this type of
literary .creature, he instead
writes as if he were one him-
self, injecting the described
traits into his article in a way
which is subtly contrived but
makes those mistakes painfully
obvious. Tt makes for a game
of reading the writer's list of
those errors made by his victim,
then looking to find where those
same errors were made in the
critique.
To start, Mr. Fong chides
Mr. Wortham's "forced labor of
sixty-cent words" then goes on
to use a number of them him-
self, and a few ninety-cent
phrases as well. (Actually, hav-
ing always had an affection for
words, I have no objection to
a few appropriately used sixty-
centers or even a ten-buck ses-
quipedalian.)
In the same breath he at-
tacks "overworked cliches," and
later resorts to the old "tree
of knowledge/love/life" device
to end his essay, and calls it
a metaphor instead of a simile
as an added "slip-up." (I really
liked that part, though my mind
started to fill with all sorts of
interesting comparisons to use
in its place, such as "the stu-
dents' present knowledge is a
giant vat of sour mash and
Rice is distill that will yield a
golden education, arrrgh.)
Mr. Fong then moves into
the main body of his argument,
and this is where his talent
shows through, for his critic
advances his main argument in
that scholarly righteous man-
ner which is calculated to
create a feeling of "By Crom,
he's right!" in the reader. Of
course the problem with this
method is that the critic, as
demonstrated by Mr. Fong,
usually builds his arguments on
a flimsy base. The original ar-
ticle was not intended as a deep
"analysis;" nevertheless Mr.
Fong's critic erects a Gothic
cathedral of heavy arguments
on a thin layer office, and nat-
urally it collapses before the
discerning reader, even though
buttressed by his definitions of
man and his needs, and another
reasonable point or two. (per-
haps this was a poke at at-
tempts to give such work "re-
deeming social value.")
Of course, the "ice" was the
critic's opinion that Mr. Wort-
ham's view lacked depth. Mr.
Fong -characterizes his writer
as if he didn't realize that three
weeks at such a complicated in-
stitution as Rice is hardly time
to form anything deeper than
"some first impressions," which
may or may not change with
time, and that is exactly what
Mr. Wortham's essay concerned.
Jt's great to find another
humorist around here.
Sincerely,
Jim Carls
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Jackson, Steve. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 61, No. 6, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 27, 1973, newspaper, September 27, 1973; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245171/m1/2/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.